Tipton-Whittingham v. City of Los Angeles Plaintiffs' Evidentiary Proof in Support of Consent Decree

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Barrett S. Litt, State Bar #45527 
Anna Y. Park. State Bar #164242 
LAW OFFICE OF LITT & MARQUEZ 
A LAW CORPORATION 
3435 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 1100 
Los Angeles. California 90010-1912 
Telephone: (213) 386-31 14

Constance L. Rice, State Bar #153372 
Bill Lann Lee, State Bar #108452 
Darci Burrell, State Bar #180467 
NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND 

EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC.
315 West Ninth Street, Suite 208 
Los Angeles, CA 90015 
Telephone: (213)624-2405

Carol A. Sobel. State Bar #84483 
Mark D. Rosenbaum, State Bar #59940 
Jon W. Davidson, State Bar #89301 
Silvia R. Argueta, State Bar #144400 
ACLU FOUNDATION OF SOUTHERN 

CALIFORNIA 
1616 Beverly Boulevard 
Los Angeles, CA 90026 
Telephone: (213)977-9500

James K. Hahn
CITY ATTORNEY FOR THE 
CITY OF LOS ANGELES 

Robert Cramer 
Assistant City Attorney 
1800 City Hall East 
200 North Main Street 
Los Angeles. CA 90012 
Telephone: (213) 485-1429

Attorneys for Defendants Attorneys for Defendants

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

TERRY TIPTON-WHITTINGHAM, et
ah,

Plaintiffs,

Case No.: CV-94-3240 (RC)

PLAINTIFFS’ EVIDENTIARY PROOF IN 
SUPPORT OF CONSENT DECREE 
CONSENT DECREE.

vs.

CITY OF LOS ANGELES, et ah, 

Defendants.

DATE:
TIME:
COURT:

1. Although the defendants deny any liability in this case, it is agreed that, should 

the case be tried, the plaintiffs would present substantial evidence in support of their claims, the 

nature of which is partially outlined in the following paragraphs of this Section.

2. Plaintiffs would present evidence - through statistical data, the opinions of 

experts, and testimony of class members - that the plaintiffs contend would demonstrate that the

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City and the Department have discriminatorily recruited women and minority applicants for 

LAPD officer positions; that their entry level appointment procedures, involving written 

examinations, oral interviews and other screening devices, have had an unjustified adverse 

impact in some circumstances on minorities and women; and that their Academy, probationary 

and field training procedures have had an unjustified adverse impact in some circumstances on 

minorities and women. This evidence would include:

a) Although women represent 43% of the Los Angeles County civilian labor force, 

and the City Council has voluntarily set as a long term goal recruiting women at that level, the 

highest percentage of women recruited as applicants since 1990 has been 27%. Men pass the 

LAPD physical agility test at a 99% rate; women pass it at a rate of 71%, and the disparity is 

statistically significant. The attrition rate after admission to the Police Academy and through 

probationary field training has been 18% for women during the years 1990-95, a significantly 

higher rate than that for white males.

b) Not withstanding their consistent availability and demographic trends, such as the 

participation of African Americans in the military substantially above their percentage in the 

population, the percentage of African Americans recruited to the LAPD in proportion to overall 

LAPD applications has dropped 40% in the last five years; this recruitment pattern has impeded 

the hiring of African Americans. Not only has the rate of application significantly dropped, but, 

since 1990, African American appointments to the Department (i.e., acceptance into the Police 

Academy) have fallen significantly below anticipated rates; for example, in 1995-96, the African 

American appointment rate was only one-half of the African American applicant rate, amounting 

to only 7% of the appointments. The attrition rate after admission to the Police Academy and 

through probationary field training has been 15% for African Americans, a significantly higher 

rate than that for white males, and has been 25% for African American women, dramatically 

higher than for any other identifiable group.

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c) Although the current Latino Los Angeles County civilian labor force 

representation exceeds 40%, Latino application rates to sworn Department positions have never 

exceeded 35%.

d) Although the City projects a current 12% Asian/Pacific Islander Los Angeles 

County civilian labor force representation, the application rate of Asian/Pacific Islanders to 

LAPD sworn positions has never exceeded 9%.

3. Departmental promotional surveys of women and minorities and the Department’s 

Coveted Position Report confirm the underrepresentation of women and minorities in some 

coveted positions.

4. The Christopher Commission findings in 1991 state that the continuing negativity 

and biases toward women and minorities and the continuing lack of sensitivity towards issues 

involving race, ethnicity, and sex throughout the Department.

5. The Blueprint for Implementing Gender Equity in the LAPD by the Women s 

Advisory Council to the Los Angeles Police Commission (October, 1993) states that the ongoing 

and pervasive problems of women and women of color in the Department due to gender and race 

bias. The Blueprint outlines continuing impediments women face in every aspect of life in the 

Department, including recruitment, promotions, assignments to coveted positions, and the 

existence of a frequently demeaning and hostile work environment.

6. The Christopher Commission’s supplemental report {In the Course o f Change:

The Los Angeles Police Department Five Years After the Christopher Commission, May 30, 

1996), states that that continuing pervasive problems are faced by women and minorities in the 

Department five years after the Christopher Commission’s acknowledgment of the problems, and 

that very little has changed during that time regarding the Department’s attitude towards women 

and minorities. Women, particularly women of color, continue to be excluded from highly 

desirable coveted positions, such as Metropolitan Division, Narcotics Group, and SWAT.

7. Numerous women at all levels within the Department would testifythat 

discriminatory classifications by the Department prevent women and minorities from competing

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on an equal footing with white male counterparts within the Department, and that the Department 

has failed to remedy pervasive and systematic hostility towards women and minorities in every 

part of the LAPD from recruitment and training to promotion to pay-grade advancements and 

coveted positions.

8. Numerous female officers would testify to being discouraged from applying for 

highly desirable promotions and coveted positions and for being stereotyped into units that do 

not lead to positions which allow for future promotions; this testimony would be supported by 

figures showing the underrepresentation of women in elite positions. There would be testimony 

from female officers, who. despite impeccable records and with over 25 years in the Department, 

were discouraged from applying for elite positions, such as Robber)’ Homicide, or applying for 

promotions such as Lieutenant. They would also testify that women are stereotyped into 

working in discrete units due to their sex, such as sex crimes, or juvenile and child abuse, and 

that these positions provide lesser promotional opportunities than do others. They would also 

testify that white male officers in the Department are preferred for promotions and coveted 

positions.

9. Numerous civilian and sworn employees in the Department would describe the 

following evidence of a hostile work environment and a climate of retaliation for those who 

stand up to it:

a) Females have been openly called “tunaboat,” “cunt,” “whore,” “black ghetto 

whore,” “bitch,” and “slut.”

b) Supervisors have openly stated that “women do not belong in the 

Department.”

c) Male officers have strewn open condoms over female officers’ work stations.

d) Male officers have drawn breasts and a penis onto photographs of a female 

officer’s child.

e) Male officers have grabbed and groped female employees, and the 

Department has responded at times by treating the victim, through its discipline and 

administrative processes, as if she were the perpetrator.

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f) Male officers have raped female employees, and the Department has at times 

failed to take any action or discipline against the male officer, but rather has subjected the 

female employee to harassment and scrutiny in violation of her privacy rights.

g) The Department has at times charged women officers who were victims of 

domestic violence with misconduct for having called an outside agency for help while not 

disciplining her officer husband for his conduct.

h) Male officers have at times been subjected to retaliation for objecting to the 

discriminatory treatment of female officers, up to and including instances of officers’ careers 

being effectively destroyed as a result.

10. High ranking officials within the Department and the City would testify that many 

of the problems addressed by this Consent Decree are commonthat neither the Department not 

the Board of Police Commissioners can fully address and resolve the problems despite their good 

faith efforts to do so, and that the best w'ay to ensure that these problems are resolved is through 

court involvement.

11. The following is a brief summary of testimony which would be presented by some 

class members describing their personal experiences:

a) Kathy Age, an African American woman, finished first on the list for 

promotion to Lieutenant in 1994. Her achievement ignited a concerted campaign by white 

male subordinates to discredit her and prevent her advancement. The campaign began with 

an “anonymous” letter from Wilshire Division officers to the Police Commission, alleging 

that Lt. Age only promoted because she was having an affair with a Commander. 

Simultaneously, a group of white male sergeants at Foothill Division used the Department 

discipline system to harass and intimidate Lt. Age by filing more than 11 false complaints of 

misconduct against her. After 17 months and an investigation by the Department’s EODD, 

Personnel Division concluded the situation was nothing more than “mutual hostility” and had 

nothing to do with the fact that Lt. Age is black or female. Despite repeated pleas from Lt. 

Age, from the area level to the Police Commission, no person within the Los Angeles Police 

Department intervened to stop the harassment. None of the male officers has been

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disciplined for hisactions. As a result,Lt. Age was unable to prepare for and take the past two 

examinations for Captain, a test she believes she would have passed readily given the fact 

that she outscored every other individual on the Lieutenant’s examination.

b) From the time Myma Lewis, an African American woman, was a recruit in 

1980, when an officer joked about her being raped by a fellow officer on the mandatory ride- 

along, to death threats made against her by male white officers in Southeast Division, Lewis 

has been put on the defensive almost daily as a woman and as a woman of color. Lewis is 

one of a series of black supervisors who found their career advancement blocked when they 

were assigned to Hollywood Division. In late 1994, Lewis transferred to South Traffic 

Division, an entity in which female officers had been complaining about harassment by 

several male sergeants for some time. When several of the women approached her for help 

shortly after she arrived, Lewis spoke to the Captain about the problem, keeping confidential 

the complainants’ names. When the Captain failed to respond, Lewis went to the area 

commander. After that, an investigation began, but instead of focusing on the harassers, the 

investigation threatened Lewis with misconduct charges if she did not reveal the names of 

those officers who spoke to her on condition of confidentiality. Off on stress, she found 

herself surveilled by the Department and subjected to harassive phone calls by command 

officers at South Traffic. Nearly two years after the initial complaints against two male 

sergeants, those two officers were finally transferred from South Traffic.

c) Catherine Shuman is a white officer who, after joining the LAPD, divorced a 

white officer and married a black classmate in the Academy. That decision began a series of 

events, including racist actions by her ex-husband, comments by training staff and command 

staff about her relationship with her present husband and a campaign to fire or force 

resignation of the black officer. Just as the turmoil of the Department’s response to her 

divorce was subsiding, Shuman found herself the target of prototypical sexual harassment by 

Captain Robert Kurth, her supervisor at West Los Angeles Division. Captain Kurth had been 

brought into West Los Angeles Division following an investigation into wide-scale patterns 

of discrimination against female officers at West Los Angeles by male officers, including an

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informal band called “Men Against Women.” For nearly two years, Kurth, made express, 

unwanted advances to Officer Shuman, touching her inappropriately, pressing his body to 

hers, telling her in explicit detail his sexual exploits with other women, and pressuring her 

into lunch at a hotel with a suggestion for sex after lunch. All during this time, Kurth 

allowed male officers at West Los Angeles to engage in harassing conduct with impunity and 

rewarded with a promotion at least one male sergeant who had been transferred only weeks 

before because of complaints of harassment against him at another unit.

d) Cynthia Juarez, a Latinawoman, joined the LAPD in 1983. Recruited to 

Central Vice Division as its first female officer in 1985, she experienced sexual harassment 

from male officers pulling her into an elevator and attempting to open her blouse, to sexually 

suggestive photographs of women posted in the workplace with her face superimposed on 

them. Juarez was off on stress for three years following an incident in which a male officer 

dug his hands into her shoulders and forced her breasts to move from side to side, mimicking 

“a Mexican earthquake.” When she returned to work, she was assigned to a gang unit, where 

she was met with hostility as the “bitch who filed that sexual harassment complaint.” In a 

stint at Northeast Division, she was supervised by an individual who repeatedly told her 

women did not belong on the job. When another female suffered a breakdown in the 

environment at Northeast, Juarez transferred to another assignment. After approximately 

nine months, supervisors from Northeast recruited her back, promising a return to the 

Detective Division and a change in the work environment. Once again, Juarez was met with 

hostility and isolation. This time, she attempted to address the problem head on. Supervisors 

dismissed her complaints as insignificant. When a male officer was beaten in the men’s 

locker room for supporting Juarez, supervisors still did nothing. Finally, more than two 

months after the beating, Internal Affairs began an investigation. For ten months, until the 

harassment became too much, Juarez was subjected to isolation, derogatory looks and forced 

to see her harasser while the LAPD disciplinary process dragged on. The disciplinary 

process took more than two years to complete.

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e) For Kathy Simpson, a white woman who joined the LAPD in 1987, 

discrimination was a constant based on her sex and the fact that she was gender-stereotyped 

as a small female. She was denied promotions, assignments and, more importantly, 

commendations that would have been virtually automatic for any male officers with her 

record of saving fellow officers in difficulty. She also experienced physical and verbal 

harassment by male officers. In one instance, when she complained to the area Captain, his 

only response was to leave her alone in a closed office to “work out her problems” with the 

male. When she reported inappropriate race and sex-based comments made by a co-worker 

about a black female supervisor, she found herself the target of retaliation by command staff 

on down. Suddenly, she was subjected to four personnel complaints for misconduct within a 

matter of months. In one, she was charged with damaging Department property in a situation 

where she rescued several officers pinned down by an armed suspect. The “property 

damage” occurred when the transmission in her police car abruptly shifted out of gear, 

sending the car backwards into a fence and pinning her head between the car door and fence. 

When she and a partner responded to a “hot call,” no other officers responded to their call for 

back up, conducting routine traffic stops instead. Her calls to command staff resulted in 

inquiries about her sexual orientation. The male officer who made the racist and sexist 

comments received a slap on the wrist and a scheduled promotion to Sergeant.

f) Carl Tomlinson, a white male, is a 22-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police 

Department. Presently at the rank of sergeant, he previously served in the LAPD’s elite 

METRO unit. Tomlinson is married to named plaintiff Zina Tomlinson, a white female who 

is also an LAPD officer. When Zina Tomlinson was subjected to sexual remarks and other 

inappropriate conduct at South Traffic Division, Sgt. Tomlinson encouraged her to report the 

misconduct to the Captain. Zina Tomlinson was one of several female officers who had 

complained repeatedly of sexual harassment by male supervisors in the unit. When the 

Captain refused to take the complaint, and, instead, pressured Zina Tomlinson to transfer out 

of South Traffic, Carl Tomlinson sought the assistance of the Department’s Women’s 

Coordinator, who told him it was none of his business. At the time that he was trying to get

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the Department to respond to his wife’s complaint, Tomlinson went on loan to Internal 

Affairs. Despite the fact that he did well on the loan and that he was told he would be 

selected for the unit, when this lawsuit was filed, Tomlinson was taken aside by a lieutenant 

in IA and told he would not get the position because of his wife’s participation in the lawsuit.

Respectfully submitted,

DATED: October 1996. LITT & MARQUEZ

DATED: October__, 1996.

By:
Barrett S. Litt 

Attorneys for Plaintiffs

ACLU FOUNDATION OF SOUTHERN 
CALIFORNIA

DATED: October__, 1996.

By.
Carol Sobel 

Attorneys for Plaintiffs

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND
EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC.

DATED: October 1996.

By.
Constance L. Rice 

Attorneys for Plaintiffs and Plaintiff 
Intervenors

MEXICAN-AMER1CAN LEGAL DEFENSE 
AND EDUCATIONAL FUND

By___________________________
Thomas Saenz

Attorneys for Plaintiff Intervenors

DATED-October ,1996. ASIAN-PACIFIC AMERICAN LEGAL
— CENTER

By.
Bonnie Tang

Attorneys for Plaintiff Intervenors

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DATED: October ,1996. JAMES K. HAHN
— LOS ANGELES CITY ATTORNEY

CHARLES DICKERSON 
ASSISTANT CITY ATTORNEY 
ROBERT CRAMER 
DEPUTY CITY ATTORNEY

By_____________________
Robert Cramer 

Attorneys for Defendants

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