A chief investigator has been sacked after refusing to tip a waitress because she wore a BLM pin.
The incident happened in Tacoma, Washington, where Cloyd Steiger, who used to work for the Washington Attorney General’s Office’s Criminal Justice Division prior to his dismissal, was dining together with his wife.
According to the AGO’s termination letter, the Chief Criminal Investigator was fired after refusing to tip a waitress, Reese Vincent, because of her Black Lives Matter pin and raising his voice with another employee at The Fish Peddler Restaurant.
“You reported to our AGO investigators, Ms. Roe and Ms. Muigai, that you were offended by the pin but did not verbalize your concern to Ms. Vincent and remained cordial to her during your stay. You paid your bill with your credit card and wrote on the receipt in the tip line, ‘BLM button = no tip. That’s how socialism works,’” the letter read.
As the letter went on to explain, Steiger then raised his voice while talking to another employee on his way out of the restaurant.
“Ms. Vincent reported in her interview that his name is Jeff Ewing, a sales person from the corporate office who was acting as the host that day,” the letter added.
“You described your tone of voice as normal as you were speaking with Mr. Ewing but as the ‘20 second’ conversation continued, you raised your voice for approximately the last five seconds of the interaction.
“When you complained about the BLM pin on the server’s shirt and explained that employees should not be allowed to wear political paraphernalia during work, Mr. Ewing stated that the restaurant was unable to do anything about it.
“You asked if the restaurant would allow Blue Lives Matter paraphernalia, Mr. Ewing said yes. You told the AGO investigators that at this point you raised your voice and verbally called out ‘bull****.’”
As the termination letter suggests, the senior investigator then flipped off the sales employee before walking out of the restaurant.
Following Steiger’s termination, his lawyer, Steve Fogg, called the termination “illegal” because it violates the investigator’s First Amendment rights.
“The AG is firing Cloyd not because he didn’t do his job (he did it well) and not because he didn’t tip a waitress and raised his voice,” the attorney wrote.
“The AG fired Cloyd for expressing political opinions as a private citizen with which some members of the AG’s Office disagreed.”
Replaced!