The claims of two of five Los Angeles police officers who say they were retaliated against after reporting that commanders allegedly enforced illegal quotas for gang contact and gun-related arrests and seizures should be tried along with those of the others, their attorneys argue in new court papers opposing the city’s bid for dismissal.
“Contrary to the (LAPD’s) false characterization, it is patently clear that plaintiffs have indeed exercised due diligence throughout the proceedings,” the officers state in court papers filed Monday with Judge Michael Small.
The lead plaintiff is Officer Samantha Fiedler, who sued in August 2020. Fiedler and the other officers maintain in the consolidated Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit that management imposed career-impairing actions against them, including taking their guns and badges away and assigning them to home duty. Fiedler was the first to sue when she brought her complaint in August 2020 before all the suits were combined into one.
The other plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Officers Mario Fernandez, Julio Garcia, Rene Braga, Raul Uribe and John Walker. On Feb. 13, Small heard the city’s motion to dismiss all claims by all plaintiffs, took the issues under submission and eventually ruled that all but Uribe could take their cases to trial. Uribe is awaiting a ruling on his motion to reinstate him as a plaintiff.
With trial scheduled for June 8, the City Attorney’s Office recently filed court papers with Small arguing that the claims of Fiedler and Fernandez should be dismissed because they were not brought before a jury within the five-year limit to do so. The judge has scheduled a hearing for May 22.
“Defendant anticipates that plaintiffs will have all manner of excuses as to why they could not bring their matters to trial within the statutory time frame, none of which will justify denial of this motion,” the City Attorney’s Office argues in its court papers while attributing the situation to the plaintiffs’ inability to manage their own trial calendars.
But in their pleadings, the plaintiffs’ attorneys state that the originally scheduled Feb. 9 trial date had to be continued to accommodate the city and permit hearing of its “last-minute” dismissal motions within the required time frame. Therefore, the city should not be able to assert an April 6 deadline because the five-year statute of limitations to bring the case to trial was on hold for about 42 days from Feb. 9 through March 23, the plaintiffs’ lawyers contend in their pleadings.
When the city signed an agreement to delay the trial so that their six dismissal motions could be heard no later than 30 days before trial, it acknowledged the complexity of the case and not only the amount of work that had been completed, but also that work that still needed completion, the plaintiffs’ lawyers further state in their court papers.
“Accordingly, the department’s arguments that plaintiffs did not act diligently, and that somehow the failure to bring the case to trial by April 6, was due to plaintiffs’ counsel’s own doing, is without merit,” the officers’ lawyers further state in their court papers.
But in their court papers, the city’s lawyers state that the plaintiffs did not take any depositions until last November and only did so after the city filed its dismissal motions.
Fiedler, who was a member of the LAPD Metropolitan Division, contended in a sworn declaration that management for years enforced an unofficial quota system that rewarded officers who identified and arrested many alleged gang members and punished those who failed to do so.
Fiedler said that taking an alleged gang member into custody who had a weapon was the “most favored arrest, not only because it was talked about in every roll call, but if you made that arrest, you would get emails from command staff all the way up the chain congratulating you on the arrest.”
Fiedler further maintained that a lieutenant told her that her promotions were heavily dependent on recap numbers.
Fiedler says that after two years in Metro she was “harvested,” or re-assigned, to be a firearms instructor in 2019 and that in January 2020 she was suddenly assigned home and stripped of her police powers, including being told to turn in her guns and badge. She also says she was downgraded.
Some of Fiedler’s fellow plaintiffs were charged with deliberately misidentifying people as gang members, but a judge later dismissed the case against them. Fiedler, the daughter and sister of LAPD officers, subsequently obtained a law degree and moved out of state.
The City Attorney’s Office maintained that Fiedler testified during a deposition that no one told her that she needed to increase the number of gun seizures she produced or that she needed to increase the number of arrests she made.