Baltimore County?s appellate board Thursday unanimously upheld the forced retirement of a veteran police officer who was declared medically unfit for duty after crashing his car during a seizure in 2004.
The ruling comes just days after the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission determined the county violated the rights of 22-year veteran Officer Phillip Crumbacker and three other county officers who testified on his behalf during the administrative proceedings.
A former SWAT team member who has been free of seizures for more than 30 months, Crumbacker has worked “light duty” since the high-speed crash on the Baltimore Beltway, fighting the county?s decision to place him on disability retirement.
“How Crumbacker himself was not killed, much less any member of the public, is incredible,” board members wrote. “This board could not help but think that, if someone had been killed in the accident, there would be no question regarding Crumbacker?s disability retirement.”
Crumbacker “did everything he could to hide his condition from his superiors,” according to the board?s opinion. He also illegally drove after his first seizure two months before the accident and refused to report it to the Motor Vehicle Administration, county attorneys argued.
Crumbacker?s attorney, John Austin, did not return telephone calls seeking comment.
But three neurologists who treated Crumbacker said his chances of experiencing another seizure are low. The county?s contracted medical doctor at one point declared Crumbacker fit for duty, then subsequently changed his mind without a follow-up exam, according to the EEOC ruling released Tuesday.
That ruling was a major victory for Crumbacker and the three officers who testified on his behalf, all recounting single-episode seizures as early as 10 years prior.
Though none had experienced medical problems since, the next day the county ordered each to submit to fit-for-duty exams, violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, the commission said.
Cole Weston, president of the county?s Fraternal Order of Police, called it “retaliatory.”
“I think it?s a shame,” Weston said of the board?s ruling. “I think he?s a heck of an asset to the police department and the citizens of Baltimore County.”
