LAPD Agrees to Accept 1st Woman for SWAT Unit : Police: Officer had sued, saying gender bias was behind testing procedures that kept her off the elite squad.

A longstanding bastion of male domination at the Los Angeles Police Department fell Wednesday as the LAPD agreed to accept the first female officer into the internationally acclaimed Special Weapons and Tactics unit.

The historic move came after the officer, Nina Damianakes, filed suit in state and federal courts last month, charging that she was being denied admission to SWAT because she is a woman. In SWAT’s history of more than 20 years, no woman officer has been assigned there.

Whether Damianakes, 34, will actually join the unit still was unclear.

Her attorney, Patrick McNicholas, said Wednesday that Damianakes, “per doctor’s orders,” would not report for SWAT duty today. In an interview with The Times last week, she said she has been under great stress as a result of her treatment by the department and has been seeing a doctor because of it.

In addition to granting Damianakes a position, the LAPD has agreed to suspend all SWAT testing because the procedures may have discriminated against female candidates.

“Staff’s investigation did not reveal any disparate treatment against (Damianakes) on the basis of gender as she claims,” according to the department’s grievance response, a copy of which was obtained by The Times on Wednesday. “However, the investigation did reveal some internal flaws in the construction and administration of the selection process which could be viewed by a third party . . . as insufficiently job-related and possibly having a disparate impact on female candidates.”

LAPD officials declined comment on the case Wednesday. It is the department’s policy not to comment on personnel matters or on pending litigation. The department’s decision to grant her grievance does not settle Damianakes’ lawsuits, so the litigation may continue.

In granting her grievance, the LAPD agreed to assign her to SWAT school. The department said it would transfer her to SWAT--a 60-member unit whose officers routinely perform some of the most arduous and challenging duties faced by police officers anywhere--when she completes that school in four weeks.

Most important, according to critics of the SWAT testing process, the LAPD agreed to “undertake an in-depth analysis of the SWAT testing procedures utilizing the expertise of test research personnel outside the department.”

Hank Hernandez, general counsel for the Police Protective League, said the department’s willingness to bring in outsiders to study the testing procedures will help assure that admission into SWAT is handled fairly. The league has backed Damianakes, assisting her with her grievance and supporting her decision to bring the lawsuits.

Although Damianakes was not available for comment Wednesday, she said in an interview with The Times last week that she has wanted to be a member of the LAPD’s most exclusive unit since she joined the force in 1983.

“Everything I’ve done in my career has been to get to SWAT,” said Damianakes, who was accepted into the LAPD’s elite Metro Division in 1988, a prerequisite for joining SWAT. “I turned down jobs at the academy. I turned down the opportunity to work for Chief (Daryl F.) Gates on a permanent basis. I passed up opportunities to promote. This is all I ever wanted to do.”

Damianakes has been commended on numerous occasions and has been repeatedly encouraged to apply for the special weapons unit. Her colleagues and supervisors speak glowingly of her talents as a police officer, and many were disappointed when she failed twice to qualify for SWAT.

She first was allowed to take the rigorous physical training test for the unit in 1990. After failing it, she was allowed to try again last year, but department officials rated her near the bottom of the 20 officers who took that test.

Damianakes, an accomplished athlete whose rating reports include strong recommendations from her supervisors, maintained that the real reason she ranked so low was that she is a woman. She did not seek any change in the test itself but instead argued that the rating system was biased against her.

The department’s decision to grant her a place in SWAT was accompanied by a personal note from Police Chief Willie L. Williams.

“I have every confidence that you can and will be a success in your new assignment to SWAT,” wrote Williams. “I hope it will challenge you to be the very best. We ask only that you bring your dedication, enthusiasm and talent to the job.”