Videotape Reveals Simi Police Bias, 3 Officers Say

A videotape made years ago featuring Simi Valley police officers lampooning women, minorities and homosexuals is surfacing as an important piece of evidence in a discrimination lawsuit by three veteran officers.

Two white officers charge in the suit filed last month in federal court in Los Angeles that they were harassed by superiors who considered them “damaged goods” after they were injured on the job. A black officer maintains he was racially harassed.

The officers say the videotape, made for a departing colleague and apparently intended to be humorous, reveals a deeply ingrained attitude of intolerance in the department that extends to officers injured on the job.

“This situation with the department has lingered a long time, and [the officers] just got fed up,” said Jack Hull, the attorney representing the officers in the suit, which names the city, Police Department and a number of individuals. “They were putting their lives on the line every day, and for a city to do this to them, a city considered one of the safest in the nation, it’s enough outrage for anybody.”

The tape is a series of skits made as a goodbye gift to former officer Chris Wade, who left the department and moved to Washington state in 1991, according to personnel records.

Among those featured on the videotape is then-police chief and current City Councilman Paul Miller, shown listening in as two captains joke that no one on the force wants to work with homosexuals. The scene takes place in Miller’s office. Miller declined to discuss the tape, referring calls to the city attorney.

Simi Valley City Atty. David Hirsch declined to discuss specific allegations in the suit, but said the department has never violated any harassment or discrimination policy.

“We don’t believe any of the allegations have merit,” Hirsch said. “And while the tape may have been in bad taste, we don’t believe it’s any evidence of racial discrimination in the department.”

Other skits feature a man portraying a drunk called Jimmy Homie, who speaks in a stylized street idiom. Another segment shows a man making graphic sexual advances toward a woman, represented by a life-size cardboard cutout of a Coors model.

City Manager Mike Sedell said city officials saw the tape in 1996, after a former officer running for a City Council seat talked about the video during his campaign. Sedell said the tape was clearly done in poor taste, but found it fell short of revealing any racist or sexist attitudes within the department.

“This was not a tape meant to hurt anybody,” Sedell said. “It was done with some cop humor involved, intended as a private joke for a fellow officer leaving the job. There may be one or two places with some inappropriate wording, but it’s no worse than anything you see on ‘Saturday Night Live’ or ‘Mad TV’--and it wasn’t done as a police document. It was in no way meant as an official representation of the department.”

Sedell said everyone involved with making the tape was verbally reprimanded for inappropriate behavior, but no additional disciplinary action was taken.

“There were no allegations of anything illegal that had been done here,” Sedell said. “It was all a spoof, done as a joke.”

But John Hatcher, president of the Ventura County chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, said just because the tape was supposed to be a joke doesn’t mean it was not also racist and a form of harassment.

“A joke like that is a violation of federal law, simple as that,” Hatcher said. “The joke he calls in poor taste creates a hostile and intimidating work environment.”

Hatcher said the city’s decision not to more sternly punish the officers means it did nothing to discourage similar behavior in the future.

“The department has institutionalized that form of racism and discrimination,” Hatcher said. “The institution they work in perpetuates feelings of racism, sexism, when they don’t punish it. They just think, ‘Oh, it’s just a joke, he didn’t mean it, it’s just bad taste.’ But it’s still wrong.”

Hatcher said the timing of the tape, made in the months before the racially charged Rodney King beating trial came to Simi Valley in 1992, is particularly telling of the department.

The 20-minute video, a series of short comedy skits, was intended to poke fun at Wade.

But some of the skits violated the department’s policies against discrimination and harassment, Officers Sean Allen, David Raduziner and Jack Greenberg allege in their lawsuit filed last month.

In one scene with Miller, the then-chief pretends Wade has been gone from the department for a few weeks but wants to return because of an alleged homosexual relationship the officer had with an investigator.

“Basically, what you just told me,” Miller says into the phone, “we may have a problem because I didn’t know I had those kinds of guys in the department.”

Later in the skit, Capt. Jerry Boyce, now retired, enters Miller’s office and jokes that Wade may also have a drug problem, and therefore shouldn’t be allowed to return to the department.

“A lot of guys don’t want to work with a coke freak,” Boyce said.

“Or a [homosexual],” Capt. Dick Wright answers.

“Or a [homosexual],” repeats Boyce.

Wright referred calls to the city attorney, and Boyce was unavailable for comment.

In the skit with the Jimmy Homie character, the belligerent man argues with authorities after his arrest. Although the man portraying the character is white, he is clearly supposed to represent a minority, the officers allege in their lawsuit.

“They shouldn’t be making fun of anybody, but I think here they were obviously making fun of black people,” said Allen, who is black. “It makes me mad, because this is a police department. They are supposed to set the example. But this, it’s totally offensive behavior.”

Allen is the second officer to file a discrimination lawsuit against the department. Sgt. James W. Payne, who is black, also sued in 1993, alleging he was stuck at the rank of sergeant for 16 years because of his race. The suit also alleged that while waiting for a verdict in the King trial, several officers said they would stop any car with black occupants.

The city settled out of court with Payne for $20,000 in 1994. Payne has since retired.

Allen alleges he was subjected to the same kind of discrimination as Payne: That he, too, was denied promotions, never even rising to the level of senior officer after seven years on the department while lesser-qualified white officers moved up the ranks. Allen says he routinely heard officers use racial slurs to describe suspects.

He also charges that he was written up for minor infractions, which eventually led to his being placed on paid administrative leave earlier this year for dereliction of duty.

Department officials also stripped Allen of his gun and badge after Allen’s estranged wife alleged he had struck her during a fight in November 1998. In his suit, Allen, who denies his wife’s allegation, says similar action was never taken against other officers who also had spousal-abuse reports filed against them. In fact, other such reports were routinely ignored, Allen said.

“Nothing ever became of these cases,” Allen said. “They never even went to the [district attorney’s] office.”

The other officers in the suit say they were harassed for reasons other than race.

Officers Greenberg and Raduziner allege in the suit that supervisors began harassing them after they suffered injuries so severe they were either forced off work for a time or ordered by a doctor to work light duty.

“The department considered them damaged goods,” said Hull, their attorney. “It’s very similar to athletes. Management feels they’ve invested all this money in you, and then you get a knee or shoulder injury. . . . They see you as dead weight.”

Simi Valley Police Assn. officials would not comment on the discrimination allegations.

But union officials said many of the problems Greenberg and Raduziner experienced in getting timely approval for medical treatments are common complaints. More than two dozen officers have similar stories about the city’s worker’s compensation system, said Sgt. Fred James, association president.

“There’s been just a constant parade of problems,” James said.

Greenberg, an officer since 1993, injured his knee during a motorcycle training session in January. A doctor said Greenberg, a member of the SWAT team, would have to have his knee replaced. He was ordered off work for two weeks while awaiting surgery.

Upon returning to duty Feb. 5, Greenberg learned his time off had been docked from his vacation time.

Greenberg said he tried to point out the error to supervisors, but his complaints were ignored. Instead, Greenberg said, he learned his on-duty injury was under investigation. Supervisors also advised him that he might lose his spot on the SWAT team.

“They said, ‘We don’t know how long your surgery is going to take, so we may have to replace you,’ ” said Greenberg, currently on medical leave from the department.

Greenberg said it has been a struggle to get the city to pay for medical treatments. It took more than two months to receive approval for his knee surgery, and a collection agency has been sending notices to his home over lack of payment for $3,400 in medical bills--procedures the city was supposed to cover, Greenberg alleges.

Raduziner, an eight-year department veteran, agreed it was difficult getting approval for the many medical tests and surgeries he has needed on his leg after another officer accidentally shot him during a struggle with a suspect in 1995.

But more disturbing than the delays, Raduziner said, was the treatment he received within the department.

Pains in his leg required another surgery in November 1997, leaving him disabled until January 1998. Raduziner charges in the suit that from the time he returned from his last surgery until his medical retirement in November 1998, he was routinely harassed by supervisors.

In a July 1998 memorandum, Raduziner, a 1997 winner of the chief’s award, was reprimanded for poorly handling 13 calls between February and July 1998.

Hull calls the situation a clear case of “constructive termination.”

“They created work conditions that were so hostile, he was forced out of the department,” Hull said. Raduziner says he did not want to retire but felt he had no choice.

“I went through the shooting, I got my leg blown apart,” Raduziner said. “And I still came back, willing to work. I never complained about this pain or that because I liked my job. I enjoyed doing this.”

A slew of officer complaints and demands for change from the police association recently prompted city officials to hire a private auditor to review the worker’s compensation system. That audit, completed in July, recommended several changes, including hiring more staff and improving record keeping. The city is now taking steps to implement those recommendations, said Assistant City Manger Laura Magelnicki.