The story is about a woman who served in the Air Force without telling anyone that she was gay following the DADT rules. But she was discharged after police officers denounced her to her base by telling them that she was married to another woman. Jene Newsome,an aircraft armament system craftsman who spent nine years in the Air Force, played by the rules as an Air Force sergeant. She never told anyone in the military she was a lesbian. Newsome was discharged in January.
Jene Newsome's life changed when she was discharged by the Air Force after police officers in Rapid City, S.D, denounced her to her superiors. In fact, she was discharged under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy came only after police officers in Rapid City, S.D., saw an Iowa marriage certificate in her home and told the nearby Ellsworth Air Force Base. Remember that the officer never told anybody that she was lesbian or married to another woman. She kept her sexuality secret until those police officers decided to denounce her for no good reason. For Newsome, the officers were retaliating because she wouldn't help with her partner's arrest.
Newsome and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint against the western South Dakota police department, claiming the officers violated "her privacy when they informed the military about her sexual orientation".
Jene Newsome told the Associated press :
I played by 'don't ask, don't tell (...) I just don't agree with what the Rapid City police department did. ... They violated a lot of internal policies on their end, and I feel like my privacy was violated
This really sucks since Sergeant Newsome never confess to his colleagues or superiors that she was gay. Isn't against the law to use personal information in order to get someone fired ?
Anyway, according to the Rapid City Police Department, Newsome was not cooperative when the officers showed up at her home, back in 2009, with an arrest warrant for her partner, who was wanted on theft charges in Fairbanks, Alaska. But, Newsome was at work at the base at the time and refused to immediately come home and assist the officers in finding her partner, whom she married in Iowa last year.
Still according to police Chief Steve Allender , the police officers, who said they spotted the marriage license on the kitchen table through a window of Newsome's home, alerted the base. When asked why, Allender answered by saying that the license was relevant to the investigation because it showed both the relationship and residency of the two women.
Are you kiddinge me ? Their denunciation was based on a License Marriage spotted through a window ? I mean seriously ?
But of course, Steve Allender claimed that his officers didn't act out of revenge. Like we believe thim. He told the AP that :
It's an emotional issue and it's unfortunate that Newsome lost her job, but I disagree with the notion that our department might be expected to ignore the license, or not document the license, or withhold it from the Air Force once we did know about it.(...) It was a part of the case, part of the report and the Air Force was privileged to the information.
He went on by saying that department does not seek to expose gay military personnel or investigate the sexuality of Rapid City residents and that department was finishing its internal investigation and has determined the officers acted appropriately. I bet this internal investigation will clear the officers as usual.
In the complaint filed last month with the department, ACLU South Dakota said police had no legal reason to tell the military Newsome was a lesbian and that officers knew if they did, it would jeopardize her military career.
"This information was intentionally turned over because of 'don't ask, don't tell' and to out Jene so that she would lose her military status," said Robert Doody, executive director of ACLU South Dakota. The ACLU is focusing its complaint on the police department, not the military, and Newsome said she and her attorney have not yet decided on whether to file a lawsuit.
"The 'don't ask, don't tell' piece is important and critical to this, but also it's a police misconduct case," Doody said.
The Air Force Spokesman refused to comment on this story so far. I don't get why those police officers decided to denounce someone's sexuality then act like they did nothing wrong. I mean seriously ?