A judge has ordered the Los Angeles Police Department to turn over some personnel records to a former SWAT team member who alleges she was wrongfully denied a promotion.
Lt. Jennifer Grasso contends in her Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit that she was not given the upgrade in retaliation for telling Internal Affairs investigators a small group of members showed favoritism to those loyal to them and maligned the reputations of those reluctant to use deadly force.
On Friday, Judge Karine Mkrtchyan reviewed the records in the jury room. The documents included personnel information from, among other individuals, Lt. Carlos Figueroa, who was given the SWAT officer-in-charge position instead of Grasso in March 2024.
The judge directed the specified records to be turned over to Grasso’s lawyers within 10 days. The judge also sealed the transcript of the hearing in the jury room and the clerk’s minute order did not specify which personnel records are to be produced.
In their previous court papers, lawyers for the City Attorney’s Office denied Grasso’s allegations, saying they are barred by the stature of limitations and contend that any conduct taken concerning Grasso was taken for legitimate, non-retaliatory business reasons.
Grasso was hired in October 1995 and in June 2008 became the first female member of the LAPD’s SWAT team. In late 2018, the Internal Affairs unit began an investigation into SWAT based on an anonymous complaint and Grasso was among those interviewed and she disclosed that a small number of SWAT members called “plus ones” were allowed to regularly make decisions normally left to higher-ranking officers, according to the suit.
Those few SWAT members manipulated SWAT school scenarios in order to allow officers they preferred to pass and get into SWAT and to exclude those they disliked, according to the suit, which also alleges favoritism played a role in who received overtime pay.
The “plus ones” also maligned the reputations of SWAT officers who did not use deadly force when they could have on mentally ill suspects, the suit further alleges.
Grasso also told Internal Affairs the LAPD had a history of being more lenient on SWAT officers accused of misconduct compared to those on patrol, according to the suit, which further states the plaintiff left SWAT in the fall of 2018 after being promoted to sergeant.
A SWAT lieutenant who obtained a copy of the investigation began to disparage Grasso and 55-year-old Sgt. Timothy Colomey, another SWAT member who in December 2024 was awarded $3.5 million by a jury in a separate suit against the city in which he alleged some unit leaders acted like a “SWAT mafia.”
In September 2019, the same lieutenant told a large group of SWAT officers that Grasso was an “enemy” who left the platoon and that every time he read a copy of the investigation in which she was interviewed it raised his blood pressure and he “could not believe that there were people who had used their (Internal Affairs) interviews as a `couch session’ to vent about the platoon.”
Grasso was promoted to lieutenant in March 2022. She considered returning to SWAT and twice applied for an officer-in-charge position when the incumbent lieutenant in the unit retired, but was turned down both times despite her qualifications, the suit states. Grasso believes the department’s actions were retaliatory and contends her reputation has been damaged, the suit states.
The other lieutenant had warned Grasso to “distance (her)self from this whole Tim Colomey thing,” but she nonetheless gave a declaration on Colomey’s behalf in opposition to an unsuccessful city motion to dismiss his case, the suit filed in January 2025 states.
“As a further result of the department’s conduct, plaintiff’s post-retirement job opportunities will be significantly and adversely impacted, as LAPD’s SWAT team is one of the oldest, most well-respected and most cutting-edge SWAT teams in the country and even in the world,” according to the suit.