Dispatcher Sues San Fernando Police : Court: ACLU action contends officers sexually harassed Kimberly Gonzalez with semi-nude photographs of a woman who resembles her.

A police dispatcher sued the city of San Fernando and its tiny, predominantly male Police Department Wednesday, contending that officers sexually harassed her by hanging semi-nude photographs of a woman who looks like her in the men’s locker room.

The suit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, seeks unspecified damages. It asks the court for an injunction barring the department’s allegedly discriminatory practices and policies, and requiring development of training programs, and policies to deal with complaints of sexual discrimination and harassment.

The ACLU filed the suit in San Fernando Superior Court on behalf of Kimberly Gonzalez, who was hired as a civilian dispatcher in 1985 and left the department on a stress disability leave in early 1993.

San Fernando Police Chief Dominick Rivetti and Mayor Daniel Acuna said they were unaware of the suit and could not comment.

The 35-officer department has one woman officer and several women civilian employees.

Gonzalez contended that the pictures, which featured a woman with one breast exposed, were displayed in the police station for nearly a year.

“For at least several weeks in October, 1992, the photographs were posted on the bulletin board in the men’s locker room at the police station,” the suit states. “The female in the photographs bore a striking resemblance to (Gonzalez). This resemblance was readily noticed and remarked on by all male officers who saw the photographs.”

“Nobody could have missed those photographs,” said ACLU attorney Carol Soble. “They were posted for several weeks, floating around the department for several months.”

Gonzalez said in the suit that the display humiliated her, and that she repeatedly asked her male colleagues to remove the pictures, until someone--the suit did not say who--gave her an envelope containing the photographs.

But, Gonzalez contends, instead of investigating to determine who was responsible for the photo display, her superior officers questioned her about who had given them to her. She alleged that Rivetti and Lt. Dan Peavey threatened her with disciplinary action and criminal prosecution if she did not reveal his identity.

Gonzalez says her superiors told her “the display of the semi-nude photographs had done no harm to her or her character.”

“In all that time, and after they were taken down, the department never conducted an investigation to find out who put them up or sent out a memo saying this type of behavior would not be tolerated,” Soble said.

Instead, according to the suit, Gonzalez’s superior officers told her the department wanted the photographs back. They explained they hadn’t taken any action because they were “waiting to see if someone came forward to claim the pictures.”

Shortly thereafter, Gonzalez says she received a critical job review--even though she had been commended in the past. The evaluation “was thrown at her in the parking lot,” the suit said.

Other superior officers began to complain about her, Gonzalez alleges. One used profane and derogatory language with her and “repeatedly informed (her) that he is the right man to put her in her place,” according to the suit.

“When she complained about those things, it created conflict with other employees in the department. In police departments, you go along to get along. Not just in San Fernando. That’s everywhere,” Soble said.

The suit alleges that the department and individual officers’ actions “were malicious and oppressive and done with a conscious disregard for (Gonzalez’s) rights . . . “