Captain suspended...and I can't see him winning this

A police captain was suspended for not ordering his officers to attend mosque police appreciation day.

Mosque flap leads to TPD captain being suspended

By NICOLE MARSHALL World Staff Writer

A Tulsa police captain who disobeyed an order to make officers attend a Law Enforcement Appreciation Day at a Tulsa mosque was suspended without pay for two weeks...

Fields filed a federal lawsuit two days later, claiming his First Amendment rights were violated.

His suspension began June 12 and will end June 25, according to a personnel order signed by Police Chief Chuck Jordan.

Specifically, he was suspended 40 hours for violating the department's rule on being obedient and another 40 hours for violating a rule on conduct unbecoming to an officer...

...The Law Enforcement Appreciation Day was held March 4 at the mosque of the Islamic Society of Tulsa. Jordan has said the Islamic Society scheduled the event to show its appreciation for the officers' response to a threat against it. Officers have attended past events at that location.

Each of the Police Department's three patrol divisions had been assigned to schedule at least six officers and three supervisors to attend the event.

In a Feb. 18 interoffice correspondence, Deputy Chief Daryl Webster told Fields that the event organizers needed to know how many personnel would be attending so that things such as food and tours could be arranged.

Webster said voluntary participation was preferred, "but should voluntary response not be up to task, assignment would be the next alternative."

Fields said in correspondence with a superior that he considered the order to be "an unlawful order, as it is in direct conflict with (his) personal religious convictions, as well as to be conscience shocking."

He also told his superiors that he would not require any of his subordinates to follow the order "if they share similar religious convictions."...

...The revised lawsuit also had the Thomas More Law Center entering the case on Fields' behalf.

The Thomas More Law Center is a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Mich., that is involved in litigation "defending the religious freedom of Christians as well as countering the infiltration of radical Muslims in America," Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel for the center, said in a previous statement.

I can't agree with the captain. If this is a simple part of a police appreciation ceremony then it's legitimate part of police public relations. From what I'm reading this wasn't any indoctrination on the tenants of Islam, etc.