A Portland police sergeant who moonlights as a high school football coach was fired from the latter, and believes it’s because a group of angry leftists don’t like his day job.
Portland Public Schools has fired Cleveland High School football coach Ken Duilio, he says because of his position as a sergeant for the Portland Police Bureau.
Duilio, who took over Cleveland’s football program in 2019, said he was told Monday that his coaching contract would not be renewed.
Asked if the reason for his dismissal had to do with his job with Portland police, Duilio told The Oregonian/OregonLive: “100 percent.”
Portland Public Schools athletic director Marshall Haskins said coaches’ contracts are renewed each year on Aug. 1. The district, Haskins said, “chose to go in a different direction” at Cleveland. He would not say why but denied the decision had to do with Duilio’s other job with Portland police.
Duilio said there was a group — he did not know who — that put pressure on the school district to fire him as football coach. Duilio believes a campaign to remove him at Cleveland began after he spoke during a news conference at North Precinct on June 26. Fliers with Duilio’s picture attaching him to past incidents as a police officer were stapled to telephone poles throughout Portland in recent weeks.
Daryl Turner, president of the Portland Police Association, called it discriminatory that the city school district let Duilio go as a football coach.
“He’s built relationships and partnerships with people and youth in the community. He lives in Portland, raises his family in Portland and has helped direct dozens of kids who may otherwise be going a different direction were they not playing football,‘’ Turner said. “It is a shame and unfair that they fired him based on the fact that he’s a Portland police officer. It is discriminatory and contrary to what they should be teaching kids in school.”
About a week ago, Duilio said he was asked to come into the district office to talk about incidents listed on the flier. Duilio said he was told that the district “didn’t see a path moving forward because of pressure they’re getting” and was asked to resign.
In fact, Coach Duilio has long been respected by his players, seen here in this older news clip from 2010 that featured him and the impact he’s having on the kids.
https://www.facebook.com/portlandpolice/videos/437554445973/?v=437554445973
Sgt. Duilio had been assigned to the recently disbanded Gun Violence Reduction Team, and before that he was with the Gang Enforcement Team.
Sgt. Duilio recently spoke in the aftermath of one of Portland’s nightly riots:
Portland will happily cut off the nose to spite its face.
