At least five women have filed employment lawsuits against the Concord Police Department and Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office in recent months alleging discrimination, retaliation and widespread misconduct in the workplace. In light of these legal challenges, it’s crucial for individuals to be aware of their rights and be vigilant about workplace dynamics. If you witness evidence of a co-worker’s discriminatory behavior or face any form of injustice, seeking legal advice can be essential to navigating and addressing such issues.
Plaintiffs Amy Hendricks, Harley Valadez and Kristen Krieger are all former officers with the Concord Police Department and Beth Long still works there. According to their attorney David Ratner, these women were denied promotions on the basis of gender on dozens of occasions — often in situations where the promotion was given to less qualified male personnel.
“There’s a glass ceiling in place that prevents women from achieving the rank they deserve,” Ratner said in an interview Tuesday. “I’m hopeful that by these women stepping up, positive changes can be made within the Police Department.”
The allegations against the Concord Police Department describe a working environment in which women were penalized over pregnancies and maternal leave, as well as efforts to seek mental health care related to job stress.
Concord police and the city attorney did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
When Hendricks started seeing a therapist in 2014, after more than 10 years as a sworn officer, the department allegedly discouraged her from doing so.
“Concord PD instructed her to not talk about her struggles as it was a sign of ‘weakness,'” Ratner alleges in the lawsuit. “On top of that, the department therapist lacked ethical boundaries, as she would discuss employee’s problems with other employees.”
Then in 2016, Hendricks was involuntarily reassigned to dispatch.
The lawsuit documents other forms of workplace misconduct, including an incident in which a sergeant allegedly referred to Hendricks as a “sea donkey” — a derogatory term for unattractive women, according to Urban Dictionary — in front of other officers during a briefing.
In 2021, Hendricks alleges she was forced into “industrial disability retirement” with two weeks’ notice, despite having never applied for retirement. She was also prevented from keeping her service weapon, which the lawsuit claims is standard practice for retiring male officers.
“Concord PD wanted her doctors to answer if she was a danger to herself or to others. They also wanted the doctors to answer if she should be able to retain her duty weapon. Every medical report that addresses Ms. Hendricks’ ability to carry a firearm or any danger concerns consistently showed there was no evidence to suggest any issues,” Ratner writes in the complaint.
Beth Long, who has worked for the Concord Police Department since 2002, alleges she repeatedly received lower scores than her male counterparts on promotional exams that were administered by all-male superior officers.
“The exam and grading were very subjective. There was no clear grading structure or criteria nor explanation for the low grade,” the lawsuit alleges.
In April 2021, Valadez was placed on modified duty after failing her pistol qualification, prevented from immediately attempting to requalify and placed on a “performance improvement plan.”
“This was done in an effort to embarrass Ms. Valadez as other male officers were not forced to wait so long for requalification,” writes her attorney.
A male officer allegedly failed his pistol qualification on the same occasion as Valadez — but was given an opportunity to requalify the following day — and another was allegedly given “unlimited opportunities in the same day to test until he qualified” on a previous date.
Krieger, who worked with Concord police until 2020, alleges that her office was given to a male officer after she suffered an on-duty knee injury. The department also denied payment for Krieger’s knee surgery, claiming it was too expensive.
“At the same time, Concord PD covered higher costs for the same surgery for her male colleagues,” the lawsuit says.
In addition to various forms of workplace discrimination and retaliation, the lengthy civil complaint also details a number of other questionable incidents involving law enforcement, including an incident in 2020 in which an all-male team of five officers received roughly 80 hours of overtime pay to produce a Christmas video for social media. That video is still available at https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=4062562430429482.
The plaintiffs are demanding a jury trial but the case is unlikely to go that far. According to their attorney, Contra Costa County has “mandatory ADR” or Alternative Dispute Resolution, meaning it will likely end up in mediation.
The Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office is also facing allegations of discrimination and retaliation against a female employee, according to a different lawsuit that was also filed in October.
Caroline Ramos, a fingerprint technician who has worked for the Sheriff’s Office since 2011, alleges that her boss routinely made racist statements at work and disparaged overweight colleagues. Ramos also accused her boss of unlawfully accessing confidential law enforcement databases to conduct unauthorized research for friends and family members. When she complained, however, Ramos says her boss retaliated by accusing her of payroll fraud.
Ramos’ attorney Michael McNicholas did not respond to an email requesting an interview. The Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office and the county counsel also did not respond to requests for comment.
It seems if an employee has documentation to show either the department or the employee is at fault, I would think that would remove any subjectivity of the case and provide the necessary proof of who is at fault. I know there are cases of so-called disability claims as an easy way to medically retire early without having be pay taxes on a percentage of pension. Those are more tough to prove and are usually granted to the employee.
The Chief is responsible for the Police department.
Good or bad, the Chief needs to be held accountable.
ABE,
.
Concord City Manager Valerie Barone doesn’t hold any City of Concord employees accountable!!!
…as with everything these days – it sounds like there is more to this than what we’re getting
This article is very limited in scope. and to some degree poorly written, and not speaking to the facts. If you read the court filing, you will get a better feel for the undeniable atmosphere of the discrimination, harassment and the hostile working environment these women went through, something that isn’t detailed in this article.
Something that isn’t shown is their exemplary records throughout their tenures and their working with the public with only positive outcomes. As far as the promotion, when the written scores are better than your male counterparts, when they have a better educational background, when they have more continuing credits than those other male counterparts, when they have been been praised by both citizens and their peers for going above and beyond, and they aren’t promoted or told why, because when it comes to PD management the final decision is made by them without the accountability that is required by other City departments.
In giving promotions, their is no quantifiable data, nor feed back. Other departments have this mandated policy in order to justify advancement, but not the PD. Regardless of your scores and background, management does not have to justify their choice, nor give feedback as to where the applicant can improve.
Another detail that wasn’t shared is how a pregnant officer was treated differently from her male counterparts, and not allowed the same accommodations that other males were allowed during Covid. In fact federal guidelines were violated and totally disregarded by management.
If you read the Court filing, you will read that it names the same supervisors (all men) throughout the years that have subjected these women to continued harassment, discrimination and a hostile working environment.
One added detail, when an injury occurred, or a pregnancy, the women officers were put in dispatch. But when the time came that they were able to resume their duties on the street as police officers, ONLY the women were required to stay in dispatch for up to an additional year, thereby disqualifying them from promotions. When they complained, further retaliation followed. There are more instances than the few listed here that were mention in the papers filed with the courts.
There are 4 women with all unique experiences, however they all shared the end result; discrimination, harassment and retaliation.
For those of you that want to paint the PD with a broad paint brush, you are misguided. It all falls back onto management and their “control” over the rank and file. That is where the problem lies, and if you dig deeper into this lawsuit, it will be apparent.
Wow you did your research. They have a very strong case against the department.
Not the first time CPD has been sued by female officers. You’d think procedures would have been put in place to prevent this type of behavior after previous lawsuits. I guess not. No private company would allow this to continue after numerous lawsuits. I guess if your employees are unionized, management has no control over them, and there aren’t any owners to get angry over pissing away money in settlements, this is what you get.
Since Democrats have refused to legally define “what is a woman” I don’t see this winning. Now men can claim to be women, no more pregnancy discrimination as men can apparently give birth these days. They would need to provide a legal definition of “women” first. We are all waiting on that these days.
If you’re an asset to the department or business I doubt you would have this problem.
As far as I’m concerned and from what I am witnessing, with all the diversity allowed in the workplace I’m not sure who is a man or woman in uniform anymore! Besides, Concord PD ain’t worth a cr.p anymore. There is no law and order and since they DO NOT help the crimes against the tax papers (their paychecks) anymore, we don’t need them. It’s a catch and release system now and we need to defend ourselves. Concord PD should be ashamed to wear a badge that represents diversity instead of to protect the people! PITIFUL shame in you!
Get over it.Trouble follows trouble.Get rich scheme.
So let me get this straight.
At Concord:
– One of them is a female lieutenant (a command staff rank) and two of the others are suing because they say Concord doesn’t promote women?
– One is upset she didn’t get promoted when she didn’t score well on tests (obviously some women scored better and got promoted)
– One is upset because she got extra remedial training after she failed to qualify with her gun?
– One retired for mental health issues (they were concerned with her being a danger to herself) and she is mad because the department didn’t give her a gun as a retirement gift? (I hope they wouldn’t!)
At the sheriff’s office:
– One is upset because she committed time card fraud and got held to answer?
There are dozens of wonderful women in position of authority at both these departments none of whom are making these kind of allegations.
This wreaks of a “I didn’t get what I want” sleazy lawsuit and trying to use their gender as a means of an excuse for poor performance issues.
This doesn’t seem newsworthy at all.
Many of the women were promoted after the lawsuit was filed.
The lawsuit was literally just filed. Concord PD and CCCSO have been promoting women for decades.
Since Democrats have refused to legally define “what is a woman” I don’t see this winning. Now men can claim to be women, no more pregnancy discrimination as men can apparently give birth these days. They would need to provide a legal definition of “women” first. We are all waiting on that these days.
Good job. Women deserve equal treatment Shame on concord police station.
Well said KILO.
Coruption is what i think its called been happening for years… .what a shame
I don’t think women should be in the police force at all. I think we’ve all seen the videos of them getting over powered by out of shape guys maybe an office job but definitely not Frontline duty it’s a joke.
How many times were they off work because of on the job injuries?