Ex-Officer Testifies in Sex Harassment Suit Against Buena Park Police : Court: She describes lewd remarks and being pinched and slapped but says she cannot remember some details.
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NEWPORT BEACH — Sandra McClaren, a former police officer in Buena Park who sued the department alleging sexual harassment, testified under cross-examination Monday that she could not remember certain details of the incidents.
McClaren, 26, who resigned from the Buena Park Police Department in 1989, is seeking $300,000 in damages from the city for emotional pain and the premature end of her police career.
On Friday, McClaren testified that male police officers made lewd, sexist remarks to her during her two years with the department. She also testified that she was pinched and slapped on the buttocks.
Once, she testified, officers dragged her into the men’s locker room and taunted her.
Under cross-examination by defense attorney Marsha G. Slough on Monday about the specific incidents, McClaren said she could not recall details.
“I didn’t commit it to memory,” McClaren said.
She said she did not know which officer pinched her on her buttocks. She also could not recall many of the statements she had made in a 1990 deposition.
In that deposition, McClaren said her reason for leaving the police department was her relocation to Riverside County.
She said she had moved there in 1989. On Monday, McClaren said she had only moved her belongings to Riverside County, where she and her husband now live, and moved there permanently in 1990.
She said the officers’ behavior forced her to resign and subsequently affected her job performance as an investigations assistant with the Riverside Police Department.
Earlier this year, Victoria Chaney, a former Buena Park Police Department employee, was awarded $17,500 by a Superior Court jury in a sexual harassment case she brought against the city and several department officials.
One of the officers involved in that case, Sgt. Gerry Smock, also is being sued by McClaren. Smock, 52, has retired.
Lt. Anthony Kelly is the other officer named in McClaren’s suit.
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