Jury weighs Cincy firefighter discrimination case

CINCINNATI (AP) — Jurors heard closing arguments in which attorneys invoked the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his dream for equality and then began deliberating today whether the city discriminated and retaliated against a longtime black fire lieutenant in what he called “a class case of institutional racism.”

The deliberations began after a one-week trial in the lawsuit brought by Cincinnati fire Lt. Mark Broach against the city, claiming that he was targeted for defending a fellow black firefighter and for filing a discrimination complaint with the city.

In his closing argument, Broach’s attorney became tearful as he spoke of a letter that King wrote from a Birmingham, Ala., jail defending his tactic of street protests, writing: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

“I am really sorry, after all these years, that we have to do a case like this in Cincinnati,” Atty. Al Gerhardstein told jurors, calling on them to return a verdict in favor of Broach “that will sing to all of Cincinnati that they better wake up and stop discrimination and stop retaliation.”