Black Policeman Tells of Cross-Burning, Harassment

Glendale’s first black police officer, who stopped working more than a year ago because of what he contends was stress due to racial harassment, testified during a workers’ compensation hearing that he was subjected to a cross-burning and other incidents of discrimination.

In a three-day hearing before the State Workers’ Compensation Board in Van Nuys last week, Officer Ronald E. Jenkins, 38, said racial discrimination forced him to take disability leave in July, 1987.

Jenkins, who was hired by the department in 1979, is seeking disability payments for the time he has been away from work and about $38,000 in back pay that the California Labor Code provides to police officers who are disabled on the job, said his attorney, Ramon V. Poole.

The hearing will resume before Workers’ Compensation Judge Harvey G. Stark next April with the city of Glendale presenting its case. Stark will determine whether Jenkins actually suffered emotional injury.

In last week’s testimony, Jenkins told the judge that one of the first racist incidents occurred at a June, 1980, party for rookies, such as himself, who had just passed probation.

Jenkins said he arrived late at the party and was met by several officers who escorted him to the back yard, where they had erected a burning cross. He testified that when he saw the cross, they welcomed him to the Glendale Police Department.

The officers laughed, Jenkins testified, and he became upset. Most of the officers at the party apologized to him and encouraged him to stay, Jenkins said.

However, Jenkins testified, those he believed responsible for the cross-burning did not apologize and he believes they staged the event to force him to leave the department.

Jenkins testified that in addition to harassment by those officers, he was often singled out for discipline by department officials.

He said that in 1981, he was in a bar with another officer who started an altercation. A complaint from the bar owner resulted in disciplinary action only against Jenkins, he testified.

Another example of unfair discipline, he testified, occurred in 1982 when he was suspended 10 days for a drunk driving arrest earlier that year. Jenkins cited several incidents in which other officers who had been arrested for drunk driving were not disciplined.

Jenkins testified that the harassment increased after he unwillingly testified in a successful federal racial discrimination trial brought against the department by Police Officer Ricardo L. Jauregui, a Latino.

Last April, Jenkins filed his own lawsuit against the city of Glendale.

He claimed in the lawsuit that he was being punished for his testimony at the federal trial.

That suit is still pending.

A psychiatric evaluation of Jenkins in court files concluded that the depression, headaches and stomach pains he suffers stem from job-related stress.

“Mr. Jenkins currently suffers from several psychiatric symptoms that have developed in response to repeated exposure to differential treatment, racial hostility, prejudice and harassment,” wrote David L. Friedman, a psychiatrist with the UCLA School of Medicine. “His symptoms were markedly exacerbated following his participation in a successful lawsuit against the Glendale Police Department alleging racial discrimination.”

Poole said after the completion of the hearing that Jenkins will attempt to return to the Glendale Police Department.

“He has indicated he is capable of returning to work and wants to go back to work,” Poole said.