Sexual Harassment Suit Filed Against LAPD : Law enforcement: The 10-year police veteran is also fighting charges of drunken and disorderly conduct brought by the department.

A 10-year Los Angeles police veteran filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against the department Monday, claiming she was wrongfully brought up on charges of drunken and disorderly conduct because she had previously filed her complaint with the department’s Internal Affairs Division.

The filing of the lawsuit by Officer Virginia Acevedo coincided with the first day of a police hearing to determine whether she was drunk in public in Sacramento last year during the State Police Memorial, a statewide event honoring slain police officers.

Acevedo chose to have her case heard at a Board of Rights hearing rather than serve a five-day suspension without pay for the two counts of improper conduct.

The lawsuit filed in Superior Court contends that Acevedo was physically and verbally intimidated because of her ethnicity and sexual orientation. Acevedo is Latina and a lesbian.

Los Angeles police officials would not comment on the hearing or Acevedo’s allegations. Acevedo is being disciplined on two counts of improper conduct--the use of improper language at an El Torito restaurant and for being drunk in public at the Red Lion hotel, both in Sacramento.

Steven Pingel, attorney for Acevedo, said his client’s case was just part of a greater problem within the city’s Police Department, where women, minorities and gays and lesbians are continuously harassed and intimidated.

“(Acevedo’s) not alone in this, there happen to be a lot of women in the same position she’s in,” Pingel said. “The department is anti-gay, anti-lesbian and it has to be dragged into the 21st Century by the courts.”

Acevedo alleges in the complaint that during her tenure, she had been called a “beaner,” a “chola,” and a “lesbo” by many male officers and was repeatedly propositioned for sex which, when declined, immediately led to her being branded a “queer.”

Her lawsuit seeks punitive damages and unspecified compensation for lost wages, emotional distress and legal fees.

Though Acevedo’s complaint chronicles a 10-year history of racial and sexual insults, the lawsuit revolves around the events of May 11-12, 1992.

As a member of the LAPD’s honor guard attending the police memorial, Acevedo said Officer Jack Brandt repeatedly made offensive and derogatory remarks of a sexual nature toward and about her.

According to the suit, Brandt made similar advances toward Acevedo a year earlier at the same event, repeatedly attempting to kiss her and at one point trying to forcibly enter her room.

“When they got to the hotel in May of 1992, Brandt asked the hotel if he could share a room with Acevedo,” Pingel said. “The request, he said, was made in jest, but based on the circumstances, it wasn’t funny.”

In a complaint filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on March 3, Acevedo wrote that she had seen “officers (male and female) when accused of having an alternative lifestyle have their employment jeopardized.”

“Actions ranged from shunning to threatening their lives. I lived in constant fear of being exposed as a lesbian,” Acevedo wrote in the complaint.

Acevedo, a member of the department’s legal affairs division, has been on medical leave since the end of last year, after her hospitalization for a stress-related illness, Pingel said.

A coalition of women’s organizations, led by WAC, the Women’s Action Coalition, came out in support of Acevedo on Monday.

Carrying signs and shouting slogans, a group of about 35 women marched from Union Station to Parker Center, the site of the hearing, to protest what they see as the department’s neglect and indifference toward the “sexual harassment, rape, stalking and assault of female police officers.”

“They’re actually recruiting women to come into a department where it’s not safe,” said protester Triana Silton, 22.