A former LAPD officer is suing the city and Chief Charlie Beck, alleging fellow black officers were punished more severely than their white and Latino colleagues and that he was forced into early retirement to avoid possible firing over an anonymous complaint.
Venson Drake, who alleges race discrimination and deprivation of due process rights, is seeking unspecified damages.
A Los Angeles Police Department spokesman declined comment.
According to his Los Angeles Superior Court complaint, Drake, 54, was a witness during his LAPD career to “racially motivated behavior by other officers, including higher-ranking officers.”
“Plaintiff saw an unwritten rule that there is a difference in the way the department treats black officers as opposed to white and Hispanic officers,” the suit filed Friday alleges.
Drake alleges he also saw LAPD officers and as well as high-ranking personnel “treat African American citizens in a disparate manner, acting with hostility, bias and unfairness to those in the community it policed who were black,” and objected to his non-black colleagues making racially offensive remarks.
The LAPD also regularly passed over qualified blacks for promotions in favor of less qualified blacks and Latinos, according to Drake’s lawsuit.
The LAPD’s Internal Affairs division received an anonymous complaint in June 2012 that Drake “was violating a department policy,” the suit states. There were two other officers named in the complaint, one white and one Latino, according to the suit, which does not state the nature of the complaint.
In June 2013, Beck rejected a Police Commission recommendation that Drake be suspended for five days and referred him to a Board of Rights hearing for possible termination, the suit states.
“Chief Beck’s decision not to follow the recommendations of the Police Commission was highly unusual,” according to the lawsuit, which alleges the chief’s actions were based “on account of plaintiff’s race.”
Drake says he was presented with a “Hobson’s choice.”
“Plaintiff was told he could either take retirement in lieu of possible termination or exercise his right to a Board of Rights hearing,” his suit states.
Although Drake chose to have a hearing, he says delays in having the procedure move forward forced him to “either take early retirement or put the economic survival of his family in jeopardy.”
“Having no real choice, and being denied a timely hearing, (Drake) took retirement in lieu of possible termination,” and he left the LAPD in September 2013, the suit states.
Drake, days after graduating from the Police Academy, was the only survivor of a Dec. 12, 1988, collision between two patrol cars going to Skid Row to assist detectives. The vehicles collided at Fifth and Wall streets; one hit a pole and the other went into a ditch.
Drake was the only officer wearing a seat belt. The LAPD subsequently cited the collision to illustrate the need for officers to buckle up while driving just as any other citizen.
— City News Service