Police Officer's Suspension Prompts Meeting of Black Leaders and Chief By MARK R MOSS Chronicle Suff Writer The recent suspension of a black police officer and complaints from other officers prompted lead ers of the African-American com "N munity to meet with police Chief George Sweat Tuesday afternoon. "It was a good exchange of ideas," Sweat said after the meet ing, which was closed to the media. "1 asked them to tell me their con cerns, and they did. " "I thought it was a good meet ing," said the Rev. John Mendez, a founding member of Citizens United for Justice. Sweat met for about an hour with Mendez, William Tatum, pres ident of the local branch of the NAACP, Naomi Jones, president of the Black Political Awareness League and the Rev. William Fails, a High Point minister who is also a member of Citizens United for Jus Ike. They said they left the meeting feeling confident they had accom plished their goals in letting Sweat know their concerns. "We tokl him about the com plaints we've gotten from black offi cers," Mendez said. Mendez said they also dis cussed some specific proposals with Sweat but would not elaborate on what they were. He did say that they discussed sensitivity training and the need to hire more black officers. Only 18 percent of the police force is African American, he said. The meeting was prompted by the suspension of Rodney Leathers, a black police officer who was sus pended without pay for four days after a confrontation involving a mechanic. Leathers claimed that the mechanic overcharged him for a car part. The incident happened while Leathers was off duty, but he returned to the repair shop in uni form and with his supervisor's okay. His intention, he said in an inter view last, week, was to see if Steve Grubbs, the shop's owner, was there so that another officer could serve him with a warrant. Leathers had taken out a warrant charging Grubbs with obtaining property under false pretense. As it turned out. Leathers' com plaint against Grubbs was dropped, but Grubbs complained to the department about Leathers, who was suspended. When Leathers returned to work Saturday, he discovered that the department had filed another disciplinary action against him that contained four more conduct viola tions he was alleged to have com mitted. Leathers believes the second disciplinary report was a result of George Sweat the grievance he had filed in which he accused an officer in the depart ment's Internal Affairs Division of making a false statement in the report investigating the entire mat ter. Leathers' grievance hearing was scheduled for this week. Tatum said the Leathers case was part of what was discussed iiT the meeting, but Sweat had little to say about the matter because it had n't been resolved. "Sometimes black officers need to go past their supervisor in order to be heard,'' Tatum said. "We told Sweat we 're going to encourage officers to go to him when a problem arises," said Mendez. The four agreed that Sweat promised to keep his door open.