"AP News Break: Outspoken Conn. DCF critic fired"

APNewsBreak: Outspoken Conn. DCF critic fired

By SUSAN HAIGH / Associated Press / July 11, 2013

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — An activist minister and Department of Children and Families employee who has long been critical of his employer over racial issues, has been fired from his job as a youth service officer at the agency’s Connecticut Juvenile Training School in Middletown.

A DCF spokesman confirmed Thursday for The Associated Press that Cornell Lewis, a six-year employee at the state’s only secure facility for delinquent teenage boys, was terminated on July 3 following an incident last October when he failed to supervise youth under his care.

Gary Kleeblatt said Lewis was found on a computer with two other officers looking at non-work related content when a youth ‘‘received a serious injury.’’

Lewis and another officer were looking at the computer for approximately 25 minutes, while the third was watching for about four minutes, DCF said.

Kleeblatt said Lewis had failed ‘‘his most important duty and responsibility.’’

Lewis, 63, contends his firing, which he plans to challenge, is retaliation for his years of activism and public criticism of DCF and CJTS.

‘‘The incident is being used as an excuse to get to me,’’ he told the AP. ‘‘I've been targeted for the six years that I've been at DCF. I've been targeted as a black man who exercises his free speech and DCF has a bad record of disproportionately disciplining black men.’’

Lewis has been involved in a number of protests over the years, attempting to draw attention to what he claims is a racist attitude at both DCF and the training school. In 2009 he went so far as to encourage residents to refuse services from DCF because he said it lacked sufficient minority staff. Click here to keep reading.