City official slaps Jewish worker’s face as part of ‘Nazi joke,’ Rhode Island suit says
A Rhode Island city worker of Jewish descent filed a federal lawsuit against his employer after saying his boss slapped him in the face as part of a “Nazi joke.”
The 35-page lawsuit, filed Oct. 24 against the City of Warwick and Warwick Water Division through Mayor Frank Picozzi, claims Peter Broomfield — who’s worked as an operation aid at the city’s Water Division for nearly nine years — was subjected to multiple “unlawful employment practices,” aside from the joke.
“This lawsuit includes multiple allegations, and the city looks forward to its day in court,” a spokesperson for the mayor’s office told McClatchy News on Oct 30.
According to court documents, Broomfield’s boss, the Water Division chief, along with two other employees came into his office around 8:30 a.m. on Aug. 8, 2023. The chief gathered the group because he had a joke he wanted to share.
The chief asked Broomfield to stand up to hear the “Nazi joke,” which ended with Broomfield being slapped across the face so hard, the sound was audible, prosecutors said.
Laughing hysterically, the chief walked out of Broomfield’s office, leaving him in shock with a cheek still red from the slap, according to court documents.
Prosecutors said Broomfield was “mortified, humiliated, and offended,” and considered the joke especially “degrading” because of his Jewish background.
Two days later, on Aug. 10, Broomfield pressed charges, according to the lawsuit. But in October 2023 the Water Division chief pleaded no contest to a charge of simple assault and later returned to work, the Boston Globe reported.
The lawsuit accuses the defendants of religious and/or ethnic discrimination; religious and/or ethnic retaliation; gender and sex retaliation; and physical assault by state actor.
“Hostile work environment,” suit claims
Along with the August 2023 assault, the lawsuit includes allegations against the chief and other Water Division employees filed in a separate lawsuit by a former city employee, the Boston Globe reported.
Broomfield said he began to witness a change in the workplace environment in 2022, when some of his coworkers and their supervisors — including the water department chief — began making sexually explicit comments about a former female employee, according to the lawsuit.
In one example cited in the lawsuit, the chief entered a room with several staff and said, “I believe I left my socks by your bedside,” to the coworker, making her feel uncomfortable by implying that he’d been at her house.
Although some employees tried to speak up about the comments, in some instances bringing the comments to the organization’s human resources department, nothing changed, prosecutors said.
“The leadership of the Water Department fostered an unlawful, hostile work environment; the hostility quickly escalated to retaliation against those who opposed the unlawful behavior in the office,” prosecutors said.
As a result of the city’s “discriminatory actions,” Broomfield suffered and continues to suffer loss of income, work benefits and promotions and emotional distress, the suit said.
The lawsuit is asking for compensation to be paid for all lost income and benefits, including earning capacity.
Warwick is about a 12-mile drive south from Providence.
This story was originally published October 30, 2024 at 5:50 PM with the headline "City official slaps Jewish worker’s face as part of ‘Nazi joke,’ Rhode Island suit says."
