Officer’s Suit Charges Retaliation for Testimony

An 11-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department has filed a $20,000 federal lawsuit against Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and other city officials, contending that his supervisors retaliated against him for testifying before the Christopher Commission about brutality and racism in the LAPD.

In his suit, Officer Bobby Rydell Marshall alleges that his constitutional rights to free speech and freedom of association were violated when a lieutenant questioned him about his closed-door testimony and then took Marshall “before their captain.”

Later, the suit alleges, Marshall was put on an “undesirable” work shift and denied promotion. Marshall has said in earlier interviews that he also was harassed by fellow officers, one of whom, he believes, placed a hangman’s noose on a station house phone that he routinely uses.