4 Female Irvine PD Employees File Sex Harassment Suit : Courts: They claim unwanted touching, threats and retaliation by male officers. They say Chief Brobeck was told of the problem months ago but has failed to stop it.

Four current and former women employees of the Irvine Police Department sued the city, its police chief and three other supervisors in Superior Court on Tuesday, alleging sexual harassment, unwanted touching, personal threats and retaliation following complaints.

The employees claim that their male counterparts at the Police Department told them that they would not be backed up during patrols, referred to them as “the broad squad” and taunted them with sexual remarks while they were pregnant.

The women--Officers Abbe Taylor and Pam Fuhrer, dispatcher Elaine Jones and retired Officer Shari Lohman--contend that Irvine Police Chief Charles S. Brobeck has known about the alleged harassment since last Oct. 30 and failed to stop it.

City and police officials Tuesday declined to comment on the charges.

The suit seeks unspecified monetary and punitive damages from the supervisors and the city.

Taylor, a nine-year veteran of the department, contends in the suit that she was told at her hiring that at the department “women were not accepted but would be tolerated if they created no problems.”

The suit alleges that during department briefings, Taylor was referred to as a member of a “broad squad” and was subjected to sexually explicit remarks.

During a training seminar, the suit says, Irvine Police Cmdr. Charles Bozza commented to Taylor and others that pregnant employees should investigate birth-control pamphlets in the department lobby. Taylor said Bozza then told her that to keep from becoming pregnant herself she should “keep her legs out of the air.”

Taylor also claimed that she was treated differently from male counterparts when she worked on a narcotics detail--being banned from operating a surveillance van, receiving an inadequate flak jacket, told that she was working too hard to “show up the guys,” denied promotions and called a “whiner.”

The suit says that when she filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last August, she was told by a city affirmative-action staffer that it would “hurt” her career. The suit says she was, in turn, the subject of an internal police investigation “in retaliation for filing complaints about sexual discrimination” and forced to undergo a fitness evaluation by a department psychologist.

Following the EEOC filing, the suit alleges, Taylor was told by male colleagues that Irvine had “a male vs. female department” and that male officers “would not back up” female officers unless another male officer was present.

Shari Lohman said she was pressured to attend off-duty police parties where she was exposed to derogatory comments and sexual gestures and forced to listen to sexually explicit recordings by the late comedian Sam Kinison.

At one party, she said, she pointed to the necktie of a supervisor who didn’t normally wear one and said, “What’s this? How come you’re dressed up?” The supervisor responded, she asserted in the suit, by placing his hand on her breast and saying, “What’s this?”

In January, 1990, Lohman suffered a permanent back injury in a fight with two suspects. When she developed arthritis as a result and requested a less physically strenuous job, she contends in the suit, the department thwarted her efforts.

The suit alleges that she was passed over for a front-desk job and a drug-abuse resistance job that went to similarly disabled male officers. She said she ultimately accepted a disability retirement because of her “fear for her physical safety” in the event she required help from her male colleagues.

Fuhrer, who has worked for the department since 1984, alleged in the suit that she was told when hired that she should “avoid the ABCs”--which were the initials of three male officers known for making sexual advances on women. The suit alleges that when she became pregnant, she was “interrogated” by the department about her sex life.

Fuhrer joined the other women in filing the EEOC complaint last August and says in the lawsuit that she has “feared for her safety as a police officer” because of threats from her male counterparts in the field.

Police dispatcher Elaine Jones said that she has suffered in a “hostile work environment” since her hiring in 1986 and also was pressured to attend off-duty parties with male officers.

The suit contends that she reported a comment from Sgt. Michael Ogden about his “allergy” to breast implants made from silicone. When Ogden was subsequently fired, according to the suit, she was harassed by male co-workers who blamed her for it.

Chief Brobeck did not respond to a request for comment. Irvine City Manager Paul O. Brady Jr. said he had not received a copy of the lawsuit and also declined to comment.