Boynton Beach to appeal arbitrator’s decision to give job back to officer fired after deadly pursuit

Boynton Beach commissioners decided Tuesday night to try to prevent the rehiring of a veteran officer who was fired in 2022 after chasing a 13-year-old boy, who crashed and died on his dirt bike.

The city attorney will appeal an arbitrator’s recent decision that Mark Sohn, a nearly 20-year officer with Boynton Beach Police, should get his job back.

Sohn chased Stanley “SJ” Davis III the day after Christmas in 2021 after he attempted to pull over Davis at a gas station on North Federal Highway. Davis fled and crashed as Sohn chased him.

Sohn’s pursuit “clearly and unequivocally” violated the department’s policy, then-Interim City Manager James Stables wrote in Sohn’s termination letter in 2022. The policy says officers are only allowed to chase for forcible felonies. An Internal Affairs investigation suggested that Sohn, who had a history of engaging in multiple pursuits that ended in deaths, “attempted to conceal” that he was chasing Davis that afternoon.

Arbitrator James W. Mastriani wrote in a 43-page opinion dated May 20 that though Sohn did violate the pursuit policy, the city did not have just cause to fire him. Mastriani determined Sohn should get his job back without back pay and that any future violations of the policy would be grounds for him to immediately be fired. The city had 90 days to appeal the decision.

At Tuesday’s commission meeting, commissioners unanimously cleared the way for the city attorney to appeal the arbitrator’s award. Vice Mayor Aimee Kelley, Commissioner Woodrow Hay and Commissioner Angela Cruz each gave approval to file the appeal. Mayor Ty Penserga and Commissioner Thomas Turkin were not at the meeting at the time of the vote.

Many community pastors, activists, Boynton Beach residents and Davis’s family members spoke during public comment, urging the city to appeal the arbitrator’s decision.

Davis’s mother, Shannon Thompson, started by saying she is “not the first mother to have experienced this,” referencing Sohn’s past pursuits that ended in deaths. Sohn was suspended previously for one day without pay after a chase that ended in the death of 38-year-old Cyrus Deal in 2012. In 2016, a driver who was fleeing from Sohn lost control and crashed, hitting and killing 5-year-old Jayden Readon. Sohn was not disciplined.

Before then, Sohn was suspended for a week for violating the pursuit policy in 2004, though the police department no longer had records in that case. A 2004 Sun Sentinel report said Sohn and two other officers pursued a stolen car, putting drivers and pedestrians in danger during rush-hour traffic. Sohn was disciplined for violating the pursuit policy in July 2010, but the department also no longer had records in that Internal Affairs investigation.

“I don’t know about you guys, but seeing my 13-year-old son lie on that asphalt breathless is an image that I cannot wipe out of my memory  … I’m just baffled for words to even have to be standing here and constantly pleading with you guys when this should not even be a topic of discussion. His record is so despicable,” Thompson said.

Dedrick Straghn, an attorney and president of the South Palm Beach County branch of the NAACP, said he believes the arbitrator’s opinion is “riddled with contradictions.” He pointed out in the opinion where the arbitrator wrote that the past discipline Sohn received for violating the pursuit policy gave him “insufficient notice of the importance of compliance.”

“Everybody, marinate on what that means. What the arbitrator is saying is even though this officer was responsible or involved in incidents that caused the deaths of three people, the penalties that he suffered was such that this 20-year veteran officer had no idea how important it was for him to continue to comply with city policy,” Straghn said. “Is it just me, or is that one of the most ridiculous things that anybody in this room has ever heard?”

Pernell Davis, Davis’s uncle, said that because they weren’t notified by the city about the arbitrator’s decision in May, the family had been “definitely reliving some of that hurt” they felt immediately after his nephew’s death, when the family routinely spoke publicly about a lack of communication between them and city officials.

“We’re here. We’re willing to have that relationship, but we also want you to know that it’s definitely a slap in the face to even think about the possibility of getting the job back,” he said.

Pastor Richard Dames, senior pastor at Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church, said the Black community is afraid and outraged at the idea of Sohn getting his job back.

“How much more pain and problems does this commission intend to pour out on the very families who have lost loved ones at the hands of this individual?” Dames said.

Resident Lesha Roundtree, who stood at the lectern with her son who is not much younger than Davis was, said other officers on the force she has talked to are afraid, too, and feel as if they will “have to watch their backs.” She said her 10-year-old son is “a good kid, just like their son was” and that she sympathizes with Davis’s family as a mother of her own young child.

“I feel for that mother and that family because again, my son is a good kid, and it’s like if he just made one wrong decision in this community, he’ll be dead,” Roundtree said. “And that’s how a lot of our parents are feeling … the kids in this community are feeling  —  if we make one wrong turn, we’ll be dead just like our friend in the community.”

Commissioners did not have any discussion about the arbitrator’s decision or their approval for the appeal during the meeting.

“With the approval of the consent agenda, Boynton Beach city commissioners voted to appeal the decision of the arbitrator,” city spokesperson Dani Moschella said in a text message to the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “The city intends to exhaust all means in this case to ensure a fair and equitable process for the community and the city of Boynton Beach.”

Information from the Sun Sentinel archives was used in this report.