A judge Tuesday awarded nearly $1 million in attorneys’ fees to a retired Los Angeles police sergeant who won $3.56 million in a whistleblower retaliation suit in which he alleged that he suffered a backlash for speaking out about his belief that the LAPD’s SWAT unit is run by a “SWAT Mafia” of veteran officers.
Los Angeles Superior Court Jon R. Takasugi granted former Sgt. Timothy Colomey $921,460 in attorneys’ fees. His attorneys had sought about $1.38 million, an amount a lawyer for the city contended was about $67,000 too high because it allegedly included secretarial and clerical work.
The jury’s verdict was reached Dec. 4. In their trial court papers, attorneys for the city stated that, as the longest-serving SWAT sergeant and the most senior supervisor over every SWAT school for at least seven years, the issues raised by Colomey — if true — were “connected to his own actions and participation or his failure to supervise and address issues as they arose.”
According to Colomey’s suit, some SWAT leaders preferred candidates for the unit who “leaned toward shooting” over those who were “critical thinkers.” Colomey joined SWAT in 2008 and was the most senior sergeant in the unit at the time.
In a sworn declaration, Colomey said he was the supervisor in charge of the LAPD SWAT training school from 2013-19 and acquired firsthand knowledge of how candidates were chosen to participate in the school and how it was run.
Colomey maintained that as the supervisor overseeing the school, he observed that those in charge of selecting candidates looked for candidates who “leaned toward shooting instead of being slow and methodical before using force, while disqualifying those officers who were `critical thinkers’ or `unwilling to go along with the aggressive, quick-shooting SWAT culture during trainings.”’
In September 2018, the LAPD’s Internal Affairs group began investigating an anonymous complaint that compared the culture within SWAT to the LAPD Rampart scandal from the late 1990s, Colomey said.
Colomey also contended that he told an Internal Affairs interviewer that he had learned there was a group of “powerful” police officers who “wielded undue influence in SWAT, which they used to create a conformist culture within the unit that was aggressive and promoted the use of lethal force.”
Colomey further said he told the interviewer that while he does not use the term “SWAT Mafia,” he had heard the officers in question refer to themselves by that term.
On numerous SWAT calls in which he was the supervisor on scene, some of the officers in question attempted to take control of the scene and minimize Colomey’s involvement, including by telling him, “Hey Sarge, move away” or “Stay here, Sarge” while the officers proceeded to engage a suspect, Colomey said.
The officers were “essentially informing me that they did not want me in the building with eyes on the situation when they entered and made contact with the suspect,” according to Colomey.
Colomey said he was cleared of any misconduct by the Internal Affairs probe.
“Although the anonymous complaint alleged wrongdoing by me, other SWAT supervisors and even (then-) Chief (Michel) Moore, I was not found to have engaged in any wrongdoing and no allegations of misconduct were sustained against me,” Colomey said.
Colomey was hired in 1995, joined the LAPD SWAT Unit as a sergeant 2 in September 2008 and remained in the unit until October 2019. Colomey alleged SWAT lieutenants and sergeants are all aware of the alleged SWAT Mafia’s existence and influence, and a significant number of the supervisors participate both in acquiescing to the group as well as in undermining nonconforming officers and supervisors.
Colomey left SWAT for a post at Los Angeles International Airport before retiring. He sued the city in January 2021.