"A
dumb nigger" Sworn two affidavits from officers on how other officers
referred to black female officer Sheila Patterson.
"You
have two strikes against you, you are Black, and you are a female. Because that is the way it is around
here.” Statement of a white officer to
female officer Sheila Patterson.
"Zulu"
Sworn two affidavits from officers on how other officers referred to black
female officer Sheila Patterson.
In
1983 a Black officer Sheila Patterson had her chair maced by fellow cops. Earlier, another cop sprayed mace at her from
his car and explained later that spraying the mace was a joke.
In
the summer of 1990, a cop called Patterson as "cruiser butt" or
"cruiser ass” and after an investigation, the officer received an oral
reprimand. Two years later, in 1992,
Patterson found a dead mouse in her mailbox at the police station. An investigation ensued in which twenty-seven
people were interviewed and three given polygraph examinations.
The
department never discovered who placed the mouse in the mailbox.
In
1993 Sheila Patterson filed for a race and sex discrimination complaint against
the
police. A short time later, she was fired for
refusing to sign a release form after a psychological fitness-for-duty exam.
According to the officer, she was accused of
throwing a note a pad at a fellow officer and was arrested for assault (This happened
after filing the charges against the department) She said the charges against
her were a "Complete fabrication" and the EEOC, based on the
evidence, agreed.
The
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that the police department
improperly retaliated against Patterson for filing race and sex discrimination
complaints. The cops were forced to
reinstate Patterson with back pay and stop retaliating against employees and
provide training to all supervisors regarding discrimination and retaliation.
"This
is retaliatory, and ever since I returned in 1994, I have fought one battle
with them after another," Patterson said.
"It is pathetic and outrageous that I have had to go through all
this."
In
May of 1998, Patterson was fired again violating the department's regulations
governing human relations and insubordination.
On the lighter side of this, the cops claimed that they had actually
fired her for acting “in a rude, aggressive and unprofessional manner"
toward a citizen while on duty. There is
a wonderful Yiddish word that covers a statement life that, Chupitz. Basically, it means to act with the balls of
an alley cat.