Police Training Sessions Target Sex Harassment : Law enforcement: The meetings are held after court awards $3.1 million in suit filed by two former policewomen.

Long Beach police were given a refresher course in what constitutes sexual harassment on the job after a federal court jury awarded $3.1 million to two former Long Beach policewomen.

Officers attending squad meetings on Friday were advised that making unwanted sexual advances, using offensive language and slurs, soliciting sexual favors and posting offensive posters, cartoons and drawings constitutes sexual harassment, according to acting Cmdr. Linda Fierro, one of two administrators who spoke to officers.

Fierro denied that the training sessions were a reaction to the jury verdict handed down Sept. 26 in favor of former Police Officers Lindsey Allison and Melissa Clerkin, who alleged that they were sexually harassed by fellow officers.

“We’ve done ongoing training in the past and we plan to continue in the future,” Fierro said.

But Officer Mike White, a board member with the Police Officers Assn., attributed the training directly to the $3.1-million award Allison and Clerkin received. It was the largest judgment against the city in more than a decade, and city officials said they plan to appeal.

White noted that acting Deputy Chief Stephen Bonswor joined Fierro in the training sessions and afterward asked the officers questions “to see if they were paying attention.”

“For the acting patrol chief to come down to give a presentation at every single squad meeting is not usual,” White said. “A $3.1-million verdict gets attention.”

According to White, who attended a morning squad meeting, Fierro and Bonswor cited as offensive conduct some of the same examples women officers described during the trial. They included placing inappropriate material in officers’ mailboxes and posting offensive remarks on posters and bulletin boards.

Allison and Clerkin and other policewomen testified during a monthlong trial in federal court that sexually offensive conduct was endemic in the Long Beach Police Department.

Allison, the first woman assigned to the elite canine unit, testified that some fellow officers told her graphic sexual stories, urinated outdoors in her presence and allowed their dogs to attack her. Allison, 33, left the department in September, 1988, on a stress-related leave and does not plan to return.

Clerkin testified that her sergeant and onetime lover harassed her after their breakup. After she complained and administrators ordered an internal affairs investigation, other officers retaliated by calling her vulgar names and refusing to offer backup help on calls, among other things. Clerkin, 35, retired from the department in 1988, citing stress-related disability.

Both women said that department administrators responded slowly and inappropriately to their concerns. Tom Reeves, an attorney representing the city, had argued that neither woman reported her complaints in a timely manner. But once they registered complaints, administrators initiated investigations and, in some cases, officers were disciplined, Reeves said.

Barbara Hadsell, attorney for the two women officers, argued that Police Chief Lawrence L. Binkley and other administrators mishandle sexual harassment complaints by opening “full-blown” internal affairs investigations that expose the complainant to ridicule and retribution. In some cases, she said, a complaint can be better handled with a supervisor counseling the offending officer.

Fierro said that department administrators are considering revising how they handle in-house complaints of sexual harassment.

Binkley could not be reached for comment. He did not return several telephone calls.

During her presentations Friday, Fierro said she also “advised them strongly” to avoid romantic involvement between supervisors and subordinates if it would affect the subordinate’s life, including assignments, promotions and schedules.

Fierro, one of the first women to join Long Beach police, said that there are few complaints of sexual harassment within the department, which has about 60 women officers. “Officers don’t like to come forward in any investigation of an officer. That’s traditional. And it’s not any different with a sex harassment complaint,” Fierro said.

But while there may be some problems with individual officers, Fierro said she does not believe the Long Beach Police Department has any more cases of sexual harassment than any “private corporation or industry of this size.”

Fierro, who serves as a liaison between the department and Binkley’s civilian woman’s advisory group, monitored the trial for the department and testified for the city.