2 LAPD officers win $13.1 million for being the target of a probe

Two Los Angeles police officers have been collectively awarded $13.1 million in their lawsuit alleging they were victims of gender discrimination and retaliation when they were treated differently by department management when compared to their female partners in the circumstances surrounding a 2017 arrest of a drunken-driving suspect.

The Los Angeles Superior Court jury reached its verdict last week in the suit brought by Officers Stephen Glick and Alfred Garcia.

In February 2017, the suspect filed a complaint with the LAPD claiming that while in custody his eyebrows were shaved off and his body was marked up with a pen, according to the suit.

Two months later, search warrants were served on both male officers, but not on the two female officers who also were on the scene, the suit stated. After Glick complained of discrimination, both he and Garcia were ordered to a Board of Rights hearing for termination for alleged battery of the suspect, but their female partners faced no similar threats or punishment, the suit stated.

The LAPD did not subject the plaintiffs to a Board of Rights hearing after all, but the stigma effectively destroyed their reputations and Glick’s ability to promote into the LAPD’s elite Metro Division, according to the suit, which further said that both officers suffered economic damage and emotional distress.

In their court papers, lawyers for the City Attorney’s Office stated that while there was ultimately not enough evidence to punish the male officers for what happened to the suspect, “for a myriad of reasons they were the most likely of the investigated LAPD personnel to have been involved in the assault.”

Glick has been employed by the LAPD for more than two decades and has won two life-saving medals for bravery in the line of duty, while Garcia as had multiple tours in LAPD gang units, according to the suit.