The Grievant, a Deputy Sheriff with sixteen (16) years of service, was the property/release officer and tasked with assisting in the conveyance of eleven (11) inmates to another prison as well as the release of thirty-eight (38) inmates from the jail on the day in question.  All of the inmates to be conveyed were to be readied for transport by the night shift but this preparation had not been done and was left to the Grievant, causing him to fall behind schedule.  While in housing and waiting for an inmate to be removed from his cell, the Grievant doodled a stick-figure drawing in orange marker on a glass wall of the inmate classroom. The drawing consisted of a round head, a neck and torso, two upraised arms, two vertical legs hanging down from the torso, two Xs where eyes should be, a horizontal one line mouth, under which was a heavier line directly under the chin and a vertical line from the top of the drawing extending straight down to the top of the head. A civilian employee, who discovered the doodle and interpreted it to be a depiction of a person hung by the neck and dying from the hanging, found it to be in poor taste, particularly in light of an inmate who had died by suicide hanging in the jail a few months earlier. The Employer suspended the Grievant for twenty-four hours for conduct unbecoming.

The Employer argued that the stick-figure drawing undermined the department’s reputation, was inappropriate, and was placed in a high-visibility area. Additionally, the drawing was made with an orange marker, the same color as the inmates’ jumpsuits.

The Grievant defended his action as harmless, unintentional, and misinterpreted. He stated that the drawing was not intended to depict a hanging but rather to express how “dead tired” he felt and was merely an attempt to “blow off steam.” The Union contended that the Employer lacked just cause and failed to apply progressive discipline, that the suspension was excessive, given the Grievant’s lack of active discipline and sixteen (16) years of service. Furthermore, the Union argued that a lower level of discipline should have been used because the conduct was not intended to harm or offend.

The Arbitrator found that the stick-figure drawing clearly resembled a hanged person, that the Grievant’s intent was not a deciding factor in determining whether the rule had been violated, that such a drawing could bring the Sheriff’s Office into disrepute or ridicule and that the Grievant’s conduct was unbecoming particularly in light of a recent suicide by hanging in the jail a few months earlier.

Grievance denied.

Employer:  Summit County Sheriff’s Office                                                Date:  July 2023