Ex-Officer Wins Sex Bias Lawsuit Against LAPD

Siding with a determined ex-cop in her fight against the Los Angeles Police Department, a Superior Court jury Wednesday found that the LAPD discriminated against Nina Damianakes when she sought to join the elite SWAT unit--then retaliated against her when she filed a complaint.

The jury ruled in favor of Damianakes on three counts, deciding that she had faced discrimination and retaliation and had effectively been forced out of the Police Department. The monthlong trial will shift into a new phase today, as jurors hear testimony about the alleged economic loss and psychological trauma Damianakes has suffered. They will then decide how much, if any, compensation to grant her.

There is only one award she will not accept: a chance to rejoin the LAPD and serve on the Special Weapons and Tactics team.

“Her heart wants to do it, but her head knows she can’t,” said her lawyer, Patrick McNicholas.

During the trial, McNicholas presented evidence that other officers harassed Damianakes so ruthlessly that she felt she could no longer work effectively for the LAPD, much less on a perilous assignment such as the SWAT team, which requires complete cooperation and trust.

After she filed a lawsuit claiming that gender bias, not lack of ability, was responsible for her poor showing on two SWAT entrance exams, Damianakes began receiving prank phone calls. Someone scribbled black ink on her official LAPD photo hanging in the Metropolitan Division, “which sends a message that you are not welcome on the force,” McNicholas said. She felt ostracized and picked on, he said.

And she began to receive poor performance reviews--including criticism of her spiky, dyed-blond hairstyle as unprofessional--after years of exemplary evaluations, McNicholas said.

The LAPD did eventually offer Damianakes a spot on the SWAT unit, which handles some of the most dangerous and challenging assignments in police work. But the offer came too late. By then, Damianakes had concluded that she would never have the support or cooperation needed to perform her duties, McNicholas said.

“They discriminated against her, they retaliated against her and they effectively fired her,” he said. “Reinstatement [on the force] is not an option for her in this case.”

Damianakes quit the LAPD in November 1994 and now works as a coach for a high school boys volleyball team in what her lawyer called a “decompression period” as she searches for a new career.

Even before Wednesday’s verdict, she had won a minor victory: The LAPD agreed to analyze its grueling SWAT testing procedures to root out possible bias. Now, McNicholas said, he hopes that the jurors’ support for Damianakes will “force [the LAPD] to open the doors and allow women to join what has previously been an all-male club.” The 60-member SWAT team has not included a woman in its 20-year history.

LAPD Cmdr. Tim McBride said the department would not comment on the Damianakes case until after the damages phase ends.

But Leonard Munoz, a director of the Police Protective League representing rank-and-file officers, said he believes the LAPD has “already started to hear” the message that women and minorities must be granted equal opportunities.

“There’s always been a certain degree of retaliation against anyone who files a grievance [against the department],” Munoz said. “Hopefully, the point of this [verdict] will be that that kind of conduct is not acceptable. . . . The jury is probably saying, ‘This is 1996, and women have proved themselves capable of doing the job.’ If they’re capable, there’s no reason they can’t join SWAT.”

Damianakes’ husband has filed his own lawsuit against the LAPD, alleging that he, too, suffered retaliation after his wife pressed her sexual discrimination complaint. No trial date has yet been set.