A representative of the Philadelphia Parking Authority will likely lose his job after he was accused of harassing a gay couple in Queen Village.
Jon Gunderson said he and his partner, Paul, were victims of antigay slurs and ridicule last weekend directed at them by Joseph DeJohn, an on-duty PPA parking-enforcement officer.
On Monday, PPA suspended DeJohn without pay, with intent to dismiss.
PPA spokesperson Linda Miller told PGN that DeJohn is a union worker and, thus, has the opportunity to appeal the suspension, which he must do within 10 working days.
“Due to the nature of the allegations and the evidence we had, we made the decision to suspend him but he does have the right to appeal,” Miller said.
Miller said DeJohn has been employed by PPA for about a year-and-a-half.
Gunderson, 31, and his partner were walking home from getting ice cream Saturday night when they spotted a PPA vehicle parked partially on the curb below a newly installed “No Parking” sign.
Gunderson said he snapped a photo of the car, because of the irony, to post later as a joke on Facebook.
“As we were walking toward it, I thought, Oh man, that person’s going to get a ticket, and then I saw it was a PPA car and just thought it was hilarious,” Gunderson said. “It was 2 feet onto the curb, blocking a handicap-accessible ramp in a crossing zone — if we’d parked like that I couldn’t imagine the ticket.”
DeJohn, whom the couple hadn’t seen in the area, evidently took issue with the photo, as well as the couple.
“We started walking away and we heard someone say, ‘Do you want a picture of my balls to go along with that?’” Gunderson said. “And we just said ya know, ‘What? No, we got everything we need. We’re all set.’ And he just followed up with more, saying things like ‘If you have nothing better to do, go suck each other’s balls, faggots.’”
Gunderson said the couple tried explaining that they took the picture as a joke and, after the antigay slurs, Paul retorted with remarks about DeJohn’s mother as the officer drove away.
By the time the couple walked another 50 feet to the house, DeJohn had returned.
“He was parked facing west on Carpenter, so he had to have gone down to Passyunk, east on Christian and down half a block on Sixth in the amount of time it took us to get to the house, so he must have been really moving,” Gunderson said. “He continued his verbal assault and, at that point, it went from annoying and disturbing to really scary because he knew where I lived at that point.”
Gunderson said DeJohn taunted them that they didn’t know anyone powerful enough to get him in trouble but left after Paul alluded that Gunderson was calling police.
The officer who was dispatched was courteous and professional, Gunderson said, the “complete opposite” of the PPA officer.
After giving a statement, the couple Google’d PPA, and recent stories by Daily News columnist Ronnie Polaneczky surfaced, whom the couple contacted.
Polaneczky called PPA about the incident, and an agency dispatcher interviewed the couple the next day, an action PPA executive director Vince Fenerty assured Gunderson would have happened no matter the call from the Daily News.
Fenerty called and personally apologized to the couple for the incident and said PPA will also issue a formal written apology.
In their conversation, Gunderson, a member of the board of the local Human Rights Campaign steering committee, conveyed that the PPA was fortunate that he and Paul were the victims.
“What if this had happened to somebody who wasn’t comfortable with themselves and wouldn’t feel OK standing up to someone? I said to him that they’re lucky this wasn’t a 16-year-old kid who wasn’t out yet, who heard what this guy had to say and went and jumped off a bridge. They’re lucky it was me and I’m happy it was me and not someone else. But we still wanted to make sure the public heard about this so people know that this is not acceptable.”
In a statement, Fenerty called DeJohn’s conduct “totally inappropriate and completely unacceptable,” saying the officer violated “many provisions” of PPA’s conduct code.
“The PPA has a zero-tolerance policy against the mistreatment or harassment of any citizen by our employees,” Fenerty said. “We do not condone or tolerate harassment of any citizen based on race, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. The PPA is proud of our history of inclusion and diversity, where our employees and managers represent the diverse nature and makeup of our city.”
Miller said the PPA has not conducted diversity training for its employees in a number of years.
Following this incident, however, Fenerty said that, starting Tuesday, PPA officials were going to be meeting with employees to communicate behavior expectations.
“To assure that our employees are mindful of the proper treatment of all citizens with whom they interact, senior management staff will provide a refresher briefing at all roll calls to remind them of our standards of professional conduct. On behalf of all Authority staff, I apologize to these citizens for the inappropriate treatment by one of our employees.”
Gunderson said that, while he didn’t necessarily want DeJohn terminated, he was satisfied with the outcome.
“I basically wanted him to understand that this is serious, this is not acceptable and to be put on warning, basically to get a strong reaction from this so he would not this is not OK. But I think the best ting that came out of this was when the director said he was going to implement the refresher training course because that’s what I wanted. Paul wanted to make sure we got an apology, I wanted to make sure there was some type of new training, so we’re both happy with how they handled it.”
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].
