Like a bad penny

We thought it likely that Todd Boothe’s name would pop up again. He’s the Chico police officer who posted racist and homophobic content on his Facebook page and was called out for it by City Councilman Randall Stone last fall.

That flap pitted the Chico Police Officers’ Association against Stone, who’d dared to question the overly generous salaries and benefits packages afforded to public-safety employees during the contentious negotiations between the city and the union. Boothe retaliated with a profanity-laced post on Stone’s Facebook page, and Stone responded by airing the Chico cop’s unprofessional online presence.

Both men displayed poor behavior—Stone, a member of the Police Community Advisory Board, showed a lack of restraint on the issue by going to the media. And Boothe’s posts, which include calling someone a “fag,” are inexcusable.

Boothe deserved to be disciplined, and as we now know (see “Officer claims damage,” Newslines, by Tom Gascoyne, page 10), he was censured by his supervisors following a departmental investigation. We know this only because Boothe is taking the steps necessary to be able to file a lawsuit against the city for alleged damages. Last week, he filed a claim with the city, charging he was denied promotion and special assignments for a year.

In other words, instead of taking his lumps and moving on from this unsavory affair, Boothe intends to try to wring some dough out of the city. And he’s doing so under the banner of “freedom of speech and protected beliefs.”

In our view, Boothe got off easy with a one-year moratorium on promotion and special assignments. Considering his behavior, it’s a slap on the wrist. What he ought to do is move on from this embarrassing incident, either by resigning from his position as a member of the police department or by accepting the punishment he most definitely deserved.