A retired Los Angeles police officer is suing a security company that partners to Fortune 100 companies, alleging he was wrongfully fired in 2024 in retaliation for complaining about driver safety issues, including the conduct of one employee involved in a fatal crash.
Frank Arujo’s lawsuit also alleges whistleblower retaliation against Culver-City based Security Industry Specialists Inc. ( SIS) and seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. An SIS representative did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the Los Angeles Superior Court complaint filed May 8.
Arujo was an LAPD officer for more than 20 years. He worked for SIS for just over a decade as an off-duty officer. His primary duty was to transfer Apple products, along with a co-worker, in box trucks between Los Angeles and Cupertino. With overtime, he made about $100,000 annually.
In October 2018, Arujo reported that his fellow driver was reckless and put his colleagues’ lives in danger. The plaintiff refused to continue making the runs with him, the suit states, but SIS asked Arujo to make another trip with the driver three months later in January 2019, according to the suit.
Arujo refused the assignment and ended up saving his own life when the allegedly unsafe driver crashed and the replacement employee was killed, the suit states.
The other driver was criminally charged and while testifying against him, Arujo said he had advised SIS in advance of the co-worker’s alleged recklessness, according to the suit. Prior to his testimony, Arujo had made many complaints to his immediate supervisor about the allegedly hazardous way drivers were operating the braking systems of box trucks, and he had also expressed concern that many drivers were in their late 70s, the complaint states.
Two supervisors took no action regarding Arujo’s unease even though a California Highway Patrol vouched for what the plaintiff was saying, the suit alleges.
Arujo then turned to human resources, but he received no sympathy there either and was instead removed from the November 2024 work schedule and told his health insurance would stop by the end of that month, the suit states. After Arujo turned down an offer to resign and accept a $20,800 severance, he was terminated, the suit further states.
Arujo has suffered economic losses, emotional distress and reputation damage, the suit states.