Fired Officer’s LAPD Lawsuit Charges Racism : Courts: Former sergeant says supervisors made racial comments and were out to get him.

A former police officer has sued the Los Angeles Police Department in federal court, contending that he was hit with trumped-up charges and fired because of institutional prejudice against African Americans.

Former Sgt. Brian K. Powell said police supervisors in the San Fernando Valley harassed him, made racial remarks to him and ordered him put under surveillance in an attempt to find enough false or exaggerated evidence against him to force him out of the department.

The suit, filed Jan. 20 in U.S. District Court, contends that the department violated Powell’s civil rights to equal opportunity and to be free of racial discrimination.

“I was humiliated, embarrassed, dehumanized and degraded,” Powell said in an interview.

Supervisors and officers were overtly hostile to him and second-guessed his judgment, he said. They were openly bitter about his being promoted to sergeant in less than six years, he said.

The LAPD does not comment on lawsuits involving personnel matters, Police Lt. John Dunkin said.

But in a Dec. 3 report recommending Powell’s termination, a police disciplinary panel said it had decided unanimously to fire Powell because of his overall performance and his lack of “commitment to the job, and willingness to be responsive to supervisory review.”

Powell, 32, who was awarded the department’s highest honor, a Medal of Valor, was suspended for several violations of departmental policy and then fired last month.

The most serious of his alleged misdeeds were wearing a department uniform while working an off-duty job, misusing a department computer on several occasions in August, 1992, and knowingly submitting a falsified quality service audit--a report on how an officer who worked for him handled a routine radio call. The audits are used by the LAPD to evaluate police interaction with the public.

Powell also was found to have used LAPD computers to get confidential information about two acquaintances, the board of rights report says.

In the report, a supervisor testified that Powell “could not function as a supervisor because of the character flaw of a basic lack of integrity.”

Powell said he was forced to adhere to a higher professional standard than white officers. He said he plans to seek his job back in a separate lawsuit to be filed in Superior Court.