Former Forward Township police officers file suit over department's disbanding

Three former Forward Township police officers filed a federal lawsuit against the municipality and its supervisors on Thursday, alleging civil rights violations.

Zlatan Avdic, Michael Piccini and Travis Stoffer filed the complaint against Supervisors Chairman Thomas DeRosa and Supervisors David Magiske and Ronald Skrinjorich.

Matthew Racunas, the township solicitor, said he has not yet seen the complaint and could not comment.

The complaint accuses the supervisors of disbanding the police department when the officers suggested earlier this year that they would unionize.

Both Avdic and Piccini worked as officers for the township for two years. Stoffer began there as a part-time officer in 1997, became full-time in 2000 and was appointed chief in 2015.

According to the lawsuit, the department was unionized when Stoffer was hired as chief.

However, DeRosa told Stoffer in November 2016 that if the department remained unionized, DeRosa would have the department disbanded.

The lawsuit asserts that five years earlier, DeRosa had been critical of the union for limiting the township’s ability to discipline officers.

According to the lawsuit, based on DeRosa’s threat to disband the police department, the officers voluntarily gave up their union affiliation.

The complaint said that this year a number of officers decided to unionize under the Fraternal Order of Police, upsetting the supervisors.

On April 11, the lawsuit said, Avdic ran into DeRosa and mentioned the union.

“‘Defendant DeRosa replied why would I be in favor of a union now when I already got rid of it once?’” the lawsuit said.

Soon after, the complaint said, all three officers were fired without any written or oral notice.

Instead, they learned via a message on Facebook on April 12 that the township supervisors had voted to disband the police department and they would no longer be employed as of midnight the next day.

The lawsuit accuses the supervisors of being reckless and abusing their power.

The plaintiffs ask to be reinstated to their positions, as well as for Forward Township to be stopped from both discriminating and retaliating against them.