Wyandotte County settles lawsuit with police officer over ‘rampant sexism and racism’
The Unified Government of Wyandotte County has settled a federal workplace discrimination lawsuit brought by a Kansas City, Kansas, police officer who alleged there was “rampant racism and sexism” in the department.
Z’Iontae Womack, a Black officer with the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department, received $87,500.00 in December 2021, according to records obtained by The Star. She is currently a detective with the department, according to Thomas Tomasic, a police spokesman.
Womack filed the lawsuit in 2019 in the U.S. District Court for Kansas, saying race and gender discrimination had been widespread in the department throughout most of her tenure, which began in 2007.
Her lawsuit alleged that she was disciplined in a “racially disparate manner” and that the discipline stemmed from a “department-wide atmosphere of racism against African-American officers.”
The lawsuit claimed that under former police chief Terry Zeigler, Black officers were punished at a rate higher than white officers despite making up a smaller percentage of the force.
Zeigler retired in September 2019 while under scrutiny for several controversies. He had been the partner of Roger Golubski, a former detective accused of using his badge to rape vulnerable Black women. And he was the subject of a 2019 Kansas Bureau of Investigation probe into whether he “double dipped” when he took time off to work on property he was leasing from the Unified Government.
In 2019, a police cadet filed a lawsuit saying Zeigler fired her in retaliation for reporting a sexual assault by another officer.
Michael York was named interim police chief in September 2019. Police Chief Karl Oakman was sworn in last June.
The Unified Government denied it discriminated against Womack or that it treated her differently from white employees at the police department, according to court records.
In a response to Womack’s allegations, the Unified Government said Womack was issued 77 suspension days by four different police chiefs for policy violations and negligent car accidents, according to court records. The Unified Government said she admitted to sleeping in her car on three different occasions.
Womack is also the widow of Lionel A. Womack, a former detective with the department who was shot and killed by two Kansas City, Kansas police officers during a physical fight and struggle in November.
A day after the shooting, Oakman said Lionel Womack pointed a gun at one of the officers and was then shot by the second officer,
Reached by phone Thursday, Womack declined to comment on the settlement.
Tomasic did not respond to a follow-up request for comment on the settlement or on the allegations made in Womack’s lawsuit.
Krystal McFeders, a spokeswoman with the Unified Government, did not respond to a request for comment.
This story was originally published April 9, 2022 at 1:28 PM.
