Aubrey Gregory is suing his department after being demoted for using the N-word, claiming he is being discriminated against. The former Louisville Metro Police major alleges that two Black people also used the offensive term during a training session and weren’t subjected to the same reprimand.
Gregory, who is white and has since retired after being shot during a protest, was bumped down from major to lieutenant last June after LMPD Chief Erika Shields told Louisville Metro Council members he used the N-word during training in an attempt to make a teaching point that “just went totally south,” according to WDRB.
In documents obtained by the outlet, Gregory, who became the director of LMPD’s Training Academy in March, walked in on a conversation between two Black men “regarding the use of a racial epithet” during a recruiting class on “isms,” such as racism, sexism, implicit bias and cultural diversity in May 2021.
“One of the individuals was from Africa, and the other was a retired firefighter,” the lawsuit states. “The individual who had immigrated from Africa stated that, when he immigrated to the United States, he had been warned not to use the word because it was offensive.”
