Constable suspended over comments

Action follows racist posts on Facebook

A Berks County constable under investigation for racist messages posted on his Facebook page was suspended indefinitely Wednesday morning by President Judge Thomas G. Parisi.

Pete Dardas, who was first elected as the constable from Bechtelsville in 2009, is barred from performing any constable-related services for the county court or district judges courts in Berks due to his failure to comply with the state policies, procedures and standards of conduct for constables, according to Parisi’s administrative order.

“They (the posts on Dardas’ page) clearly were inappropriate,” Parisi said.

District Attorney John T. Adams’ office began investigating Dardas after the county received complaints Monday that he was posting racist messages.

Dardas has since told one of Adams’ detectives that he plans to resign, Adams said.

As of Wednesday afternoon Dardas had not yet stepped down.

Dardas’ term as constable is set to run through 2021, but he is not certified by the state as a constable, and Berks has no record of him doing court-related or poll work for the county over the last decade.

He remains an elected official though, and Adams said Tuesday that the county was seeing if it has a way to change that, calling his comments “absolutely racist” and “deplorable.”

“He should not be in the position of constable,” Adams said.

Adams said Wednesday that he supports the suspension and Dardas’ pending resignation.

“I’m very pleased that we were promptly able to remove him,” Adams said. “I am confident he will no longer be working in the criminal justice and court system.”

The Facebook page of Dardas, who could not be reached for comment, had public posts encouraging a race war, a reference to putting black people “back in chains” and support for burning down a black history museum and removing a state of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Many of those posts from the last few weeks mentioned the civil unrest sparked by the death of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police.

Wednesday morning Dardas’ account was no longer viewable.

Dardas could petition to be reinstated, requesting a hearing before a judge, and Adams could petition to have Dardas removed as a constable, Parisi said.

But with Dardas apparently ready to resign, neither action seems likely, the judge added.

Constables are elected and work independently, and their duties vary by county. In Berks they can include making summary arrests with a warrant from a district judge, serving subpoenas, keeping peace at the polls to delivering legal papers on behalf of lawyers.

Though it seems unlikely Dardas would have sought court-related work in Berks without his certification, the suspension reinforced that he won’t be performing those duties, Parisi said.

“This is just closing the door,” he said.