Police officer says ‘rampant racism and sexism’ are allowed in KCK department: lawsuit
A Kansas City, Kansas, police officer has filed a federal lawsuit against the Unified Government of Wyandotte County, claiming she has faced discrimination in a police department that has been slow to eliminate “rampant racism and sexism in the workplace.”
In her lawsuit, Z’Iontae Womack, an African American woman, said race and gender discrimination has been widespread in the department throughout most of her tenure, which began in July 2007.
Womack has been disciplined for infractions her white and male counterparts have not been reprimanded for, according to the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas. Her lawsuit contends she works in a hostile environment.
The police department, according to her lawsuit, employees more than 300 officers and more than 80 percent are white. The force employs about four officers who identify as African-American women, her attorneys said.
One of Womack’s attorneys, Mark Dugan, called the standards for white and black officers at the department “completed different.”
Officer Jonathon Westbrook, a police spokesman, said the department would not comment because of the pending litigation.
In the department, “racial comments and jokes are common, with little or no discipline being imposed,” the lawsuit said. That environment continued under now-retired Police Chief Terry Zeigler, who “fostered an atmosphere” of race and gender discrimination, according to the lawsuit.
Discrimination, according to Womack’s lawsuit, was not rampant during the one-year tenure of Ellen Hanson, the department’s first female police chief, who retired in late 2014.
In a video posted to Twitter Tuesday evening, Zeigler asked, hypothetically, what a police chief should do if an employee has violated department policy or been disciplined dozens of times.
“A chief of police has to hold employees accountable” regardless of race, gender or nationality, Zeigler said. “Just like we see in the criminal justice system, employees do not like being held accountable, so they don’t tell the true story either to their coworkers, to the media or when they file lawsuits or complaints with the Kansas Human Rights Commission.”
Unequal discipline alleged
Womack’s lawsuit says the police department disciplines African American officers more severely than white officers, even for the same infractions. She has been called out, for example, for driving a car that does not have Wyandotte County tags, while numerous white officers have done the same and not faced discipline, according to the lawsuit.
Her lawsuit lists rules allegedly broken by white officers that have gone without discipline: Filing false reports, sexting and reporting fake time entries, among other things, according to the lawsuit.
Womack has been disciplined for sleeping on the job while ill, saying she was not given sufficient sick time, her attorneys said in the suit. Her partner was awake at the time. The suit said sleeping at work is a “common occurrence” among officers, which has been reclassified as a major violation as opposed to a minor one.
But when Womack took and turned in video of a sergeant sleeping, the sergeant was not disciplined and Womack was told taking pictures and videos on the job breeds mistrust, according to the lawsuit. That sergeant was later promoted.
In recent years, just Womack and an African-American male employee have been reprimanded for sleeping on the job, according to the lawsuit.
The suit said female officers are held to higher standards.
The lawsuit noted an incident in July 2017 when Womack and her partner were chased in their police vehicle by another officer, who was believed to have been drinking. The officer later said he was playing a game, but it terrified Womack and her partner, the suit said.
Womack was cited for speeding and running a red light during the chase, while her white partner was not disciplined, according to the lawsuit. She was suspended for a day, the suit said.
When Womack filed a grievance, her suspension was extended to three days, one of which was for going to human resources about the incident.
The department forbids reports to human resources if they are about a commander, the suit says.
Womack’s suit contends the department has failed to take sexual harassment claims seriously.
When Womack was nursing a child, her suit noted, she was told she could not leave work to pump breast milk, though she lived nearby. Supervisors suggested she bring her baby to work, but she worked nights, the lawsuit contended.
The police department is facing other lawsuits.
In April 2018, another officer, John Turner, sued the department claiming an investigation into him was conducted out of “racial animus” and retaliation toward him and a black colleague. That lawsuit also contended white officers were not investigated for similar conduct.
In late 2018, Lamonte McIntyre, who was deemed wrongfully convicted in a double murder in the city, sued over allegations that a detective used sexual coercion to manipulate women into providing fabricated statements that led to his arrest.
Earlier this year, a police cadet filed suit saying she was fired after pressing sexual battery charges against her supervisor.
This story was originally published December 3, 2019 at 1:40 PM.
