Women Still Finding Bias in Sheriff’s Dept. : Discrimination: A former deputy’s lawsuit paved the way for some, but many of the abuses still exist, according to females on the force.

The flowers that came to her desk told her that other women deputies believed in what she was fighting for.

The note in the bouquet told her that she would be fighting alone.

For more than 10 years, even before the flowers--and the card reading “Thanks, from those who aren’t brave enough”--Susan Bouman Paolino has pursued her federal sex discrimination suit against the county Sheriff’s Department, after she was denied a sergeant’s promotion in spite of her qualifications.

It seeks redress for her and “all others similarly situated,” all those women in the Sheriff’s Department who, in the words of one of them, “aren’t brave enough” to join the fight.

Last month, not long after the Christopher Commission report noted the high-caliber work by women in the Los Angeles Police Department and the indignities and inequities that they are subjected to, a federal appeals panel found that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department had deliberately discriminated by not promoting women to sergeant’s vacancies.

The courts have ruled in Paolino’s favor before: in 1987, declaring that women have been denied equal opportunity in promotions to sergeant; in 1988, when the Sheriff’s Department was forbidden to promote any more deputies to sergeant until it worked up procedures that do not discriminate.

Yet, some women deputies contend that the court rulings have had little effect on improving the on-the-job climate for the more than 800 women sometimes quaintly referred to on paper as “lady deputies,” and by some male colleagues in phrases far more demeaning.

Ten years after Paolino put the department on notice, another woman deputy, Laura Beard, filed suit. Some things Paolino complained about in 1980 appear virtually word for word in the 1990 lawsuit: “almost daily abusive and demeaning remarks . . . sexually offensive posters and pictures . . . improper officer safety or shooting techniques (being) pointed out by instructors as being caused by ‘female officers.’ ”

Breasts and genitalia are shown in training films, and some supervisors turn a blind eye to abuses that includes insults of which “douche-bag” is the mildest.

Last year, allegedly at the behest of several male deputies, jail inmates exposed themselves to a new woman deputy, Alyson A. Fox, threatened her, screamed obscenities, threw food at her, and put rats in her mailbox.

The male deputies were fired, but last month the men were allowed to resign.

The Sheriff’s Department said it was to avoid legal expenses and to spare Fox the embarrassment of testifying. Her attorney said her client was eager to testify: “I don’t think the department wanted to take responsibility for this and have anything come out about the hazing.”

Paolino left the department last year, after more than 18 years, and is on disability with a stress retirement.

“They don’t mind women as long as they’re answering phones or being secretaries--that’s OK. But if you want to be in a patrol car, doing something interesting, no way.”

More women have come in and moved up in the department since she joined in 1971, but Paolino believes that is largely a result of pressure, not progress. “They think: ‘We’ll do just enough to take the pressure off, so we can turn around and say, ‘We don’t discriminate.’ ”

Cmdr. Carol Painter, who as director of personnel services is one of the department’s two highest-ranking women, disputes that. Painter was the person whom the Sheriff’s Department designated to respond to The Times’ questions about the suit.

“We as a department have long been recognized for leadership nationally in recruitment and promotion of women,” Painter said.

When she joined 23 years ago, “most places you couldn’t get beyond the juvenile division as an officer. In the 23 years that have gone by, we have expanded those opportunities not only for rank but in assignment.”

Another woman who has been with the department for more than 15 years acknowledges some improvement: “We have women in homicide and places where we didn’t used to have them.”

But, she said, the way a woman is treated is only as good as the ranking officer she works for. “At one station, a male deputy says: ‘I ain’t working with no ---- broad’ . . . so the watch sergeant changes it. At another, the captain has made it very clear that deputies are deputies and they’ll do what they’re assigned to do.”

Other veteran women deputies who spoke to The Times on condition of anonymity were even more critical of the department, saying that much of what was alleged in the lawsuits persists:

* Sexual slurs. Pictures and cartoons left on lockers, such as a homemade Batwoman drawing customized with huge breasts. “Some of this stuff is done in fun,” said one deputy, “but you get tired of being a good sport all the time. If you show you’re offended, you’re either on the rag or PMS. On the radio they’ll say, ‘Take a Midol.’ ” One male deputy’s standard line is, “ ‘The only thing worse than having your son in a whorehouse is having your daughter in the Sheriff’s Department,’ ” she said.

* Lack of facilities. Women’s locker rooms are sometimes cramped, converted bathrooms where they must share space with civilians, even suspects.

* Every mistake is dubbed gender-related. “Anything you do, it’s ‘What do you expect? She’s female.’ Let’s say you crash a radio car--it’s because you’re a woman driver,” said a deputy of more than 10 years.

* Lack of support and access to choice assignments that earn higher rank and better wages. Paolino has said promotion evaluations are weighted for job experience that women often are denied. For instance, said the 10-plus-year veteran bitterly, when there is a dangerous, high-profile situation, women officers often are “sent over to the next street, or left outside to watch the cars to make sure they aren’t stolen.” One day, five of six patrol cars in the field at one station were staffed by women. “The captain said: ‘That will never happen again.’ ”

There are still unwritten quotas, some women officers say. Deputy Beard’s 1990 suit said that her transfer was approved “with suitable female replacement.” In one station, said a veteran, three of 10 detective spots were held by women. When an opening came up, it was “made clear they weren’t going to take another female.” When women are promoted, she added, “they say she did it on her back.”

* A box score approach to law enforcement that diminishes the kind of community policing the Christopher Commission says helps to defuse violence. “With guys it becomes a statistical game like baseball--how many felony arrests did you get?” said a deputy with more than five years on the job. “It doesn’t matter if you spend 20 minutes with a little old lady who just had her house burglarized, who needs some solace.”

* Grievance procedures are flawed because, while explicit guidelines exist on paper, women are afraid to use them. “Sherman Block says we don’t discriminate,” said Paolino. “It’s just like (Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F.) Gates. That’s official policy, but the reality is 180 degrees different.”

The women who talked to The Times agreed.

“It’s not tough to complain,” said one. “What’s tough to live with is the consequences of having done it. There’s definitely a price to pay.”

Painter disagrees, seeing Paolino’s action as one complaint by one woman, not a representative grievance. The class-action element “isn’t speaking for us.” When the suit was filed, “we had to put out an internal Teletype saying if any woman in the department felt she had been wronged she should know of the suit. Out of 700 women only one other joined in that lawsuit. How they determined that this was a class-action suit is still beyond me.”

Paolino says she knows why that is. Many women called her about taking some action of their own, but backed away when they saw how Paolino was harassed, isolated and ignored. A male supervisor who gave her top ratings was pressured to change them, she said. “In private, with no one around, they’d talk to me, but it was political death to talk to me in public.”

“I saw Sue commit hara-kiri. I wasn’t going to do that,” said another deputy with more than 15 years on the force.

In April, 1988, the department was ordered not to promote any more deputies to sergeant until it devised fairer promotion procedures. Those procedures have not been completed, and 125 vacancies exist for sergeant. Painter says some of those would already be filled by women if it were not for Paolino’s suit.

“I can’t begin to tell you how demoralizing it’s been for the department as a whole, not only women, that we have faced the delays that we have in furthering people’s professional goals,” said Painter.

Harley believes the department is deliberately dragging its feet so vacancies can accumulate and it can “go back to the judge and say public safety is an issue” to try to overturn the order.

Deputies who talked to The Times do not like quotas, and do not especially like the wait for sergeant promotions. Because of the suit, said one, “we females are now being blamed for delays in the sergeant’s promotion exam, like it (discrimination) is our fault.”

Times staff writer Henry Weinstein contributed to this story.