Mt Vernon offers 6-month delay in firing cop battling kidney disease

A veteran Mount Vernon police officer facing termination and a loss of medical coverage as he battles kidney disease has gotten a 6-month reprieve.

After much criticism that the city was cutting native son Derek Williams loose as his health waned, Mayor Shawyn Patterson Howard reviewed the case Thursday, Dec. 18, and determined Williams could keep his job until July 2026.

“When it comes to serious illness it requires a softer touch of government that goes beyond bureaucracy,” Patterson-Howard said in a city news release. “Having a mother who is currently dealing with dialysis, I understand the tough period he is going through.”

Williams, a longtime member of the police emergency services unit, has not worked and been off the payroll for more than two years. He has been able to contribute towards his health insurance but that cost would become exorbitant if he no longer was employed by the department.

He contends that his kidney disease diagnosed in 2023 resulted from his contracting COVID-19 while working in dangerous situations during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. He said the proof of the connection is that doctors traced it to the spring of 2020 — allowing him to be credited for an additional 2 1/2 years as he waits for a kidney transplant.

But neither the COVID nor the kidney disease were classified by the department as on-the-job injuries, leaving him with no income and susceptible to termination the longer he remained on leave.

According to state Civil Service law, the city could have terminated him after one year on leave.

Still, Williams said he was stunned and hurt this month when he got the letter from Police Chief Marcel Olifiers informing him he’d be out of a job as of Dec. 31.

The letter ended with OIifiers telling Williams, “We appreciate your service to the City of Mount Vernon and regret that this action must be taken under these circumstances.”

The termination was first reported by Mount Vernon News Center. On Tuesday, city and police officials declined to answer questions from The Journal News/lohud, with a city spokesman saying they “do not comment on personnel matters, including individual employment decisions.”

But the following night, the city issued a Statement of Facts related to Williams’ case, including that Williams had failed to file required paperwork for some of the things he sought. It explained that the city delayed termination after he was out for one year because there was “limited medical information, a reasonable expectation of recovery and the absence of a Line of Duty Injury application.”

It also detailed how the police commissioner had approved the maximum 30 days of sick leave allowed in the city charter and that donated sick leave had been available since October 2023 and remains available. Union members had donated 15 days.

On Thursday afternoon, the city announced the 6-month extension.

It came after outrage was expressed on social media and colleagues including former police Commissioner Shawn Harris and Nicholas Mastrogiorgio, a lieutenant who headed the police union until his retirement, said the city, the department and the union had to find a way to help Williams.

“He’s not a loafer, he’s not a troublemaker,” Mastrogiorgio said this week. “He’s one of the most universally liked people in the entire department.”

A GoFundMe page seeking support for Williams has raised more than $35,000 in two days.

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‘Its not right’

Williams never sought a transfer to another police agency for higher pay and less stress, like so many of his colleagues have, saying he committed his career to helping the community where he was born and raised.

“They have no empathy, no compassion,” he said before the 6-month extension. “For them to push me out it’s not right.”

Williams has been spending the money he needed to to keep his medical insurance intact. But losing his job will end that insurance, other than a short period of time when he could pay much higher insurance through Cobra.

He also has an application pending with the state Comptroller’s Office for a disability retirement pension. If granted, that would restore his full insurance coverage and give him annual pension payments equal to 50% of his final average salary.

A police officer since 2006, with only 17 years of credit due to being off the payroll, he is not close to the service years needed for a regular pension.

He said that after a doctor told him he could return to work in some capacity, he was hopeful that the department would have given him a light-duty assignment so that he could accrue enough time to get a reduced service pension.

But he claims the department told him he had to be 100% recovered to return to work.

In the Statement of Facts, the city said light-duty was only available to those granted so called 207-c benefits indicating an on-the-job injury. It also noted that, since April 2023, Williams had not filed any formal requests for 207-c, medical leave of absence, workers compensation or other benefits to cover his leave.

(This story may update.)

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