Sexual Harassment Case Filed on LAPD for Woman Ex-Vice Officer

The state Department of Fair Employment and Housing has filed a complaint of sexual harassment against the Los Angeles Police Department on behalf of a former vice officer.

In its accusation, the state agency maintains that Cynthia R. Juarez, who became a police officer in 1983, was “continuously subjected to sexual harassment, which included lewd remarks and conduct” while assigned to the central vice unit in downtown Los Angeles.

Among the gestures and remarks cited by Juarez was a comment by one officer, John Kiefer, who allegedly said, “I’d like to see those,” as he grabbed Juarez’s arm and pointed to her breasts. The complaint, filed last month, said color photographs of nude women were taped on office walls, and another officer, Louis Morales, “cut out the models’ faces and replaced their faces with photographs of complainant’s (Juarez’s) face.”

On Disability Leave

Juarez, who was assigned to the central vice unit in March, 1985, is on stress disability leave from the department. At her home in Montebello, where she lives with her husband, a Los Angeles County deputy sheriff, and three children, she said she looked back on her work at the LAPD as “a hardship. I was so humiliated.”

She had never worked before she joined the LAPD, she said, and wanted to be an officer because of her husband’s profession. At Central Division, she was the only woman among about 10 vice officers, she said, and was assigned to the so-called “Trick Task Force,” posing as a prostitute, and on vice violations such as gambling.

When the alleged harassment started happening, about two weeks after she transferred to the central vice squad, Juarez said, “I couldn’t believe somebody would do that.”

It did not stop, she said. According to the complaint, Morales asked her one day, “Have you ever seen a Mexican earthquake?” and then shook her shoulders until her breasts shook.

The state agency’s complaint asks for back pay for Juarez and unspecifed compensation for “emotional distress.” It also asks that the LAPD maintain a “workplace free of sexual harassment,” with a posted written policy and a “training program concerning the policy for all management and supervisory employees.”

LAPD spokesman William Booth said the department already has a policy against sexual harassment. “Sexual harassment is a misconduct,” he said. “We discipline for that.”

The Juarez case was investigated internally, Booth said, and “two officers received appropriate discipline.” For legal reasons, he said, he would not name the officers or say what the punishment was. He deferred questions on the complaint to the city attorney’s office, which is defending the LAPD. Attorneys handling the case could not be reached for comment.

Juarez eventually complained to her supervisors, and asked for a transfer. But she maintained that her complaints were ignored.

“I always felt there’s nothing you can do,” she said. “I felt they had all the control. Until I cracked.” That was in February, 1986, she said, when she started crying in a supervisor’s office one day and could not stop.

Case Called Typical

According to Gloria Barrios, staff attorney for the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, Juarez’s case is typical. “This follows the pattern. . . . A woman gets victimized again and again. Things happen. . . . Then they go to somebody and the complaint’s not taken seriously,” Barrios said.

Since February, 1986, Juarez said, she has been undergoing psychiatric care. She will “probably not” return to work at the LAPD, she said.

The case is the fourth sexual harassment complaint filed by the state agency against the LAPD in the last seven years, according to a spokesman. But he could not say how the others were resolved.

A hearing on the Juarez case is scheduled for March, 1988.