Jurors found that the City of Charlotte retaliated against Crystal Eschert by terminating her because she raised concerns to a city council member about the conditions of a new city office building.
They awarded her $1.5 million. The city maintains it was over a Facebook post, officials considered discriminatory and inflammatory. Ten days after Michael Brown was shot in Ferguson, Eschert posted on her private Facebook page:
So tired it's a racial thing. If you are a thug and worthless to society, it's not race – you're just a waste no matter what religion, race or sex you are.
Eschert was an arson investigator. The city terminated her in September 2014.