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Lawsuit claims race bias by ATF supervisor with Nazi tattoo

Published  September 23, 2019 12:18pm PDT
Associated Press

SEATTLE -- A lawsuit by a black employee against a federal law enforcement agency claims her career was impacted after she filed a complaint against a white supervisor with a Nazi-themed tattoo.

The Seattle Times reported Sunday that the lawsuit says the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives withdrew Cheryl Bishop's appointment to its Washington, D.C., headquarters after she filed a complaint about Bradford Devlin, a senior supervisor in the bureau's Seattle division.

Devlin says his Nazi tattoo is a "war trophy" from his undercover work with a white-supremacist motorcycle gang in Ohio in the early 2000s.

The tattoo and a series of emails sent from Devlin's ATF account mocking black people and then-President Barack Obama are key elements in Bishop's lawsuit filed in 2018.

A trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 28.