Eight officers accuse the District and the Metropolitan Police Department in a new lawsuit of breaking up their canine squad because most of the squad's officers were white and top police leaders feared a public relations problem if the media learned that fact.
The officers claim that the department brass illegally reorganized all the canine squads specifically because of the racial makeup of Squad 2 and that they suggested to other officers that the members of Squad 2 were racist. The lawsuit contends that the reorganization actions taken by Cmdr. Cathy Lanier, and directed by Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey, were "racially motivated" and unfair because none of the officers was accused of improper police work or inappropriate handling of the dogs.
"The department . . . has specifically stated that the reorganization was implemented because of the 'perception' Squad 2 would present should something happen with one of the plaintiffs and the media were to find out about its racial composition," says the officers' lawsuit, filed Dec. 9 in U.S. District Court.
Those suing are the leader of Squad 2, Sgt. James E. Ginger, and officers Paul E. Hustler, Sean S. LaGrand, Michael J. Lewis, Roy Potter, Bernard D. Richardson, Mark W. Wood and Robert M. Wigton. LaGrand is black; the other seven officers are white.
Sgt. Joe Gentile, spokesman for the police department, said the department cannot comment on pending lawsuits.
The reorganization occurred in March, around the time that an independent monitor, who had been asked by the District and the Justice Department to analyze the department's use of force, reported some improvements in the canine units but also noted lingering problems with police dogs biting suspects. The monitor's analysis found that 11 of the 17 dog bites in 2002 involved dogs handled by Squad 2.
In the suit, the eight officers allege that the department had determined that all the dog bites were justified, and they note that Squad 2 was likely to have more activity because its officers worked the night shift in high-crime areas.
Lanier was quoted as defending the canine unit's performance in an article about the monitor's findings that appeared in The Washington Post in May. The unit was broken up anyway, the officers claim, and their department leaders "warned that adverse action would be taken against them if they did not quietly accept what was taking place," according to the lawsuit.
The officers claim the department retaliated against them when they filed an equal employment opportunity complaint in April. Retaliation, they say, included "unwarranted investigations" of their work and their being forced to accept "oppressive scheduling."
The lawsuit contends that department leaders created a hostile, harassing work environment for Squad 2 officers "by telling their fellow officers that the plaintiffs, because their unit was allegedly 'too white' and had engaged in racial misconduct, were the cause" of the reorganization of all canine units. The officers claim in the lawsuit that other officers placed drawings of Ku Klux Klan members in their lockers and gave them "heil Hitler" salutes as they passed.
"They were subjected to all sorts of mistreatment, just because the police department singled them out and suggested they were racists," said Gregory Lattimer, the attorney representing the officers.
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