Nashville police department retaliated against female officer for reporting sexual assault.
A police officer in Nashville, Tenn., has filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against the Metropolitan Nashville government and a Metropolitan Nashville Police Department commander following a series of conflicts that include a 2016 sexual assault allegation against a fellow officer.
Monica Blake, an African-American woman who has served in the police department since 2005, says that she has been the target of both blatant and subtle acts retaliation based on several complaints she has filed against the department, and that the department has discriminated against her for years based on race and gender. These allegations are summed up in a lengthy complaint that the officer’s attorney, Kyle Mothershead, shared with Yahoo Lifestyle.
One of the first documented incidents of discrimination came in the summer of 2014, according to the complaint, when Blake and seven colleagues — six of them black, one white — were working with a community program for kids, GREAT Camps. After the work was done for the day and the children were gone, the officers decided to spend “down time” playing the game Cards Against Humanity.
When Cmdr. Janet Pardue — the defendant in the complaint and a police officer since 1989 — was made aware of the game, she launched a disciplinary investigation, the complaint says. Blake’s six black peers were given suspensions, but Blake received the harshest penalty: a three-day suspension. Allegedly, the white officer involved was not disciplined at all.
Following the incident, the officers were banned from working with the GREAT Camps program, a move Blake interpreted as a “silent” punishment. The complaint alleges that the incident was a catalyst for “unfair race discrimination.” In April 2015, the Nashville chapter of the Black Peace Officers Association intervened on behalf of the Card Game 8 — as the group was called by the police department — to file an official complaint with the department.
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/nashville-police-department-retaliated-female-officer-reporting-sexual-assault-lawsuit-alleges-180941203.html
