A judge Thursday dismissed a lawsuit filed by a member of the Los Angeles police bomb squad, who alleged her bosses did little when she complained that a male colleague stalked and harassed her even though he knew she was gay.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Richard Fruin, in granting the city’s dismissal motion, said there were no triable issues in Stefanie Alcocer’s case. In their court papers, lawyers for the City Attorney’s Office maintained that the plaintiff had not shown she suffered an adverse employment action or that any of the city’s actions were based on her sexual orientation.
Alcocer, who brought her suit in March 2017, alleged that Officer Harry Lathrop told her that he was “madly in love” with her for six years and that he intended to leave his wife “because of his deep love for her.”
Alcocer alleged she was forced to work in a hostile work environment and subjected to retaliation because she is gay and due to the fact she spoke out against inappropriate behavior on the job.
According to her complaint, Alcocer joined the LAPD in September 1996 and was one of 40 candidates in 2008 vying to be a bomb technician. She was selected and was the only female bomb technician in her unit, the suit states.
Lathrop, also a bomb technician, first made verbal advances toward Alcocer in April 2016, according to the suit, which says she responded that she did not have any romantic feelings toward him and that a relationship “was never going to happen.”
“(Alcocer) told Lathrop to leave her alone and give her space,” the suit says.
However, on a “daily basis” thereafter, Lathrop “stalked” Alcocer, showing up at restaurants where she ate, drove by her work detail even when he was assigned elsewhere, sent her emails and text messages and “bombarded her with telephone calls,” the suit alleged.
On one occasion, Lathrop cornered Alcocer in an LAPD parking lot and “punched an LAPD truck” when she refused to speak to him, according to her complaint.
In May 2016, Alcocer and her domestic partner, who also is an LAPD officer, went to Washington, D.C., to attend an event honoring and raising money for the families of slain police officers. Lathrop also attended and was registered at a different hotel than Alcocer and her partner, but he still showed up in the lobby where the plaintiff was staying and asked her partner to speak with him, according to the suit.
Alcocer alleged that when she went to a Starbucks near her hotel, Lathrop walked up and asked, “What about us?” and she replied, “There is no us.”
Alcocer says she complained about Lathrop’s alleged misconduct to supervisors over the next several months, concerned that he had access to the bomb squad explosives bunker. But after she presented her case to Internal Affairs that September, nothing was done and Lathrop remained in the bomb squad, the suit stated.
The next month, Capt. Cathy Meek, the commanding officer of the bomb squad, told Alcocer that her complaints about Lathrop did “not rise to the level of misconduct” and declined to begin a personnel complaint against him, according to the plaintiff.
Lathrop was removed from the bomb squad on Dec. 26, 2016, but Meek ordered that his equipment “was not to be reassigned” as it was “being stored” for him, according to the suit, which says he also was allowed to keep his city car and phone.