A lawsuit alleging racial discrimination and retaliation filed by a former Black mayoral aide against Springfield, Massachusetts, and its white mayor is headed for a jury trial after a judge upheld most of his claims that the city’s attorneys sought to dismiss.
On Oct. 1, 2020, Darryl Moss, then Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno’s constituent services director, was fired after posting on his personal Facebook page his reaction to a HuffPost article in which President Donald Trump expressed support for Kyle Rittenhouse, the young man who faced charges for killing two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in the aftermath of Jacob Blake’s shooting and subsequent paralysis at the hands of Kenosha police.
In response to a post that included a screenshot of the Rittenhouse article, on Aug. 26, 2020, Moss wrote, while tagging a friend:
“This is equal to a declaration of war … but this is America!
Sundown Sunrise Ass Country … Yo, Keshawn Dobbs, grab the rifles.”
After a brief investigation by the city’s human resources department, the mayor deemed the post a violation of the city’s social media policy and called Moss into his office to fire him.
According to a deposition of Moss, during the meeting, the mayor screamed at Moss for holding a press conference the day before where Moss and about 50 other local Black leaders and activists assembled and criticized the mayor and his staff for their unfair investigation of him and the city’s discriminatory treatment of himself and other Black employees.
At the rally, Bishop Talbert Swan, president of the Greater Springfield NAACP, praised Moss for helping to “bridge the gap between the majority-minority community and the police,” spoke about “abusive police tactics in the Black community,” and called for the resignation of Police Commissioner Cheryl Clapprood, the complaint says.
In a statement read on his behalf at the rally, Moss explained his Facebook post consisted of references to HBO’s “Lovecraft Country,” a drama-horror series set in 1950s Jim Crow America that featured a town where Blacks were warned to be off the streets by sundown. He denied the post was an endorsement of violence, reported WAMC.
“His words were taken out of context, and he was treated like a thug, a criminal, and a gangster,” said Keshawn Dobbs, his friend who was tagged in the post.
In his lawsuit filed in July of 2022, Moss contends that his post did not violate the Springfield social media policy, and that city officials used it as a pretext to fire him because they disliked his vocal opposition to the city’s discriminatory hiring practices, and his other critiques of local government.
Moss, who was hired by Springfield as an aide to the mayor in 2008, had risen through the ranks at city hall and was promoted to deputy communications director in 2015 and then director of constituent services in 2019. He chaired task forces on violence prevention and gang intervention for the mayor, while also maintaining a busy schedule as a civil rights activist outside of work, according to his lawsuit.
In May of 2020, he “spoke out about the Black Lives Matter movement and the police beatings of four Black men in Springfield,” his complaint says.
In June of 2020, he learned that Springfield Police had confiscated guns and revoked the license to carry a firearm from Kashawn Harris, a local Black businessman, and DJ, because Harris had posted on social media that other communities were “tearing stuff up” in the wake of death of George Floyd in Minnesota, and that Springfield’s demonstrations had been too tame.
The police said they considered Harris a public safety threat because of his public speech, Moss noted in his complaint. Finding that unfair, Moss said he met with Mayor Sarno and his staff, demanding the guns and license be returned to Harris.
On July 30, 2020, Police Commissioner Clapprood initiated an investigation into Moss’ social media postings, the complaint says, and did not tell him about it until Sept. 5, 2020, when he was informed that his post in August that had mentioned “grab the rifles” may have violated city policy.
At an investigatory meeting about the post on Sept. 28, 2020, Moss explained that he “was afraid for his son and himself after Trump’s defense of Rittenhouse’s deadly shootings.” In his lawsuit, Moss asserts that the post was “speaking about white mob violence” in Kenosha.
His complaint also notes that he had been performing his job in a satisfactory manner, had no prior violations of any other city policies, and contends that his post was not actually prohibited by Springfield’s social media policy.
“Springfield presented no evidence to Plaintiff that the posting harmed the City in any manner, violated the social media policy, or affected his job performance,” the lawsuit says.
Moss further alleges disparate treatment on the basis of race by the city, citing as examples a white member of the fire department who was allowed to retire when he violated the social media policy and Springfield Police Captain Richard Labelle, who had made insulting comments on Facebook in 2018 about NFL players kneeling during the national anthem, and received a one-day suspension.
Meanwhile, in June of 2020, Springfield Police Detective Florissa Fuentes, a Hispanic woman, was fired for liking a post with an image from a Black Lives Matter protest, the complaint says. (The complaint does not include the detail that Fuentes’ post contained an image of a protestor with a sign saying “Shoot the F–k back,” referring to shooting police, according to a defense document.)
Despite his controversial post being a first offense, the city did not employ progressive discipline and give him an oral warning, a written warning or suspension before terminating him “one day after he participated in a rally denouncing his mistreatment and that of other Black city employees,” the lawsuit notes.
At the time he was fired, Springfield City Council President Justin Hurst told WAMC that the termination of Moss’s employment for what he described as a “Facebook faux pas” was harsh.
“The mayor’s application of the Facebook policy is far too rigid and inevitably was going to result in good people who have a lot to offer this city being let go,” Hurst said.
During oral arguments held in February of 2025 in response to the defendants’ motion for summary judgment, Patricia Rapinchuk, attorney for Sarno and the city, said the post by Moss did violate the city’s social media policy, reported Western Mass Politics & Insight (WMASSPI).
“An objective reading of that post could be that it was advocating violence and violence against the police,” she said.
In his affidavit, Springfield Director of Human Resources William Mahoney said that after he reviewed the post, he discussed it with Moss, who explained the reference to “Lovecraft Country” and sundown towns where Blacks were terrorized in the 1940s and 1950s and said that he was “using humor as a response to the news article which made him fearful, and referred to his post as a ‘cultural reflex.’”
Mahoney said he concluded that the post violated the social media policy because “it referenced a ‘declaration of war’ and appeared to be urging someone to ‘grab the rifles.’ … In this heightened time of unrest in American cities this social media post, coming from a member of the Mayor’s personal staff, is completely in appropriate even if the intent was in jest.”
The city further argued that inconsistencies in the application of its social media policy were due to the fact that it applies differently to union versus non-union employees. At the time Moss, an at-will employee, was fired, the policy was not yet incorporated into its collective bargaining agreement, which offered more protection to employees like Labelle, who was a civil service employee and a union member.
To bolster his retaliation claim, Moss noted in his amended complaint that prior to his firing, he had complained in both written and oral communications to the city of Springfield and Sarno about discriminatory treatment of Black residents and himself by Springfield police and other officials. He had also opposed Springfield’s “failure to hire Black, Latino and women workers,” opposition that he argues was legally protected activity.
In his March 3 decision and order on the defendants’ motion for summary judgment, Hampden County Superior Court Judge James M. Manitsas found that the plaintiff’s claims of race discrimination, disparate treatment and retaliation had enough merit to survive, and dismissed his claim of negligence by the city for the way they investigated his alleged misconduct.
“While the defendants’ assertion that Moss was terminated for violating the city’s social media policy is no doubt plausible,” Manitsas wrote, “there is at least some evidence that the decision was in fact motivated by other considerations. The jury could infer that the termination was not as a result of the social media policy but instead was in retaliation for the plaintiff’s organization of and participation in the Sept 30 event that criticized the city’s handling of racial issues.”
The judge noted that Moss was “berated by the mayor about ‘what took place at the press conference’ yesterday, and then terminated at that meeting, purportedly for violating the City’s social media policy, which provides in relevant part:
‘any conduct that adversely affects your job performance, the job performance of other staff members, the public, or entities we work with, or otherwise adversely affects the legitimate business interests of a Municipal Department, may result in corrective counseling or disciplinary action up to and including termination.’”
Manitsas observed that the city’s HR investigative report to the mayor was dated Oct. 1, 2020, “the same day as the meeting and the plaintiff’s summary firing.”
In considering whether Moss’ termination was a pretext for discrimination, the judge wrote, “The plaintiff has brought forth specific instances where similarly situated employees were treated differently from the way he was treated,” concluding that “it is for the jury to determine whether the comparators are sufficiently similar, and their treatment sufficiently different, to suggest pretext.”
Moss’ lawyer, Charles Johnson, told WMASSPI that he was pleased with the judge’s decision.
“We look forward to taking this matter to a jury so that Mr. Moss can achieve justice and the city of Springfield will finally learn that it cannot treat Black men in this manner and not have to pay the consequences.”
Moss seeks damages of at least $2 million to compensate for loss of earnings, loss of experience in higher positions, loss of earning capacity, mental and emotional distress, and loss of reputation and standing in the community.
A final pretrial conference in the case is scheduled for March 24.
