A suit against the District of Columbia filed by three Metropolitan Police Department employees Monday alleges the police force has fostered a culture that tolerates sexual harassment and gender discrimination, including retaliation for reporting such behavior.
The three plaintiffs, all Black women — two are current officers and one is a civilian employee — claim supervising officers often subjected them to inappropriate sexual advances and comments.
They also say they were retaliated against by an “old boys club” environment that punished them for speaking up and reporting such behavior. The lawsuit alleges a pattern of women at the department being “subjected to constant hyper-scrutiny” and “disciplined for the smallest infraction” after they reported inappropriate behavior.
“I was walking on eggshells all the time, I was terrified to go to work,” said one plaintiff.
The three women are asking the city for $2 million each in damages.
In the lawsuit, the women specifically name a former director of the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) department at MPD, calling him a “serial violator” with “a particular disdain for Black women.” They also allege the former director undermined them when they came forward about inappropriate advances, often playing recorded complaints to the very people about whom they had complained.
In response to a request for comment on the lawsuit, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police Department told WTOP it does not comment on pending litigation.
In March of this year, an MPD culture assessment conducted by the Police Executive Research Forum found that the EEO department had inaccurate records that were in “shambles.” The department was disbanded in June but the director only changed positions; the suit states he was moved to the General Counsel’s office and is “tasked with writing MPD position statements.”
The women say they were treated similarly to 10 women who filed a class-action lawsuit over two years ago. That pending lawsuit also said Black women were ignored or retaliated against when they reported harassment and discrimination to the EEO office.
This most recent suit claims that the harassment and bullying that some female employees dealt with after reporting past behavior caused many of them to suffer mental and physical distress, even leading some of them to lose or leave their positions altogether.
“I cried driving to work, just praying that I wouldn’t have to run into him,” one plaintiff said in a press release, referring to harassment from an official.
WTOP is also seeking comment from the D.C. attorney general’s office and the D.C. mayor’s office.
