Public Domain
By The Vanguard Staff
LOS ANGELES, CA – A Los Angeles Police Department detective—described only as DOE 1—claims he was subjected to “physical and sexual abuse, including penetration of his anus with an object” while playing for a football team composed of LAPD officers,” according to a tort claim filed here this week by Alexander Morrison + Fehr LLP.
The tort claim is a precursor to filing suit against the city, said the officer’s lawyers.
“It’s ironic that LAPD officers sworn to protect the public engage in barbaric hazing conduct against each other, purportedly as a ‘bonding’ exercise,” said employment and civil rights attorney Bernard Alexander, a partner at Alexander Morrison + Fehr LLP.
“It is time to end these and all hazing rituals,” added Alexander, who charged “sexualized and abusive hazing is emblematic of a culture of physical and mental abuse suffered by countless LAPD officers including other (LA) Centurion players.”
According to the account by the officer, he was “training at the Police Academy when officers and supervisors recruited him to play on the Centurions, stating that participation would help his career, and that rejecting the invitation would hurt it. He says he was pressured into joining the team, and from the first tryouts he was harassed by senior players. The bullying only escalated with time.”
The officer added “veteran teammates instructed the rookies to head to the locker room…10 to 15 rookies were herded into a small room and prevented from exiting…rookies were selected one at a time to be taken away. He heard yelling, laughing, crying, and screams of pain echoing into the room, until he was the last one left.”
He said he “exited into a dimly lit locker room, confronted by roughly 30 to 40 LAPD officers, who abusively screamed at him and ordered him to strip naked. When he refused and resisted, officers bombarded him with liquid and objects.”
The complaint said the rookie player eventually removed his clothes, was subjected to screams of, “We want to see your little cock!” and “Show us your butthole!” And then other officers “grabbed his arms to force him to expose his genitals. Officers giggled and berated him as other officers tried to probe his anus with a hard object,” the detective claims.
The detective’s claim added he was forced to “climb into a trash barrel filled with ice water, then forced out so officers could humiliate him by forcing his hands away and making fun of his shrunken penis. Unable to escape or defend himself, he felt a hard object, likely a beer or a water bottle, being painfully shoved up his anus.”
The claim noted, “After this assault, officers pressured DOE 1 to remain silent by referencing the aftermath of the 2004 shooting death of LAPD Officer Ricardo Lizarraga, a Centurion who was killed on duty. The man charged with murder in Lizarraga’s death was pronounced dead after he was found hanged in a Los Angeles jail cell.”
“DOE 1 heard from multiple officers that the death of the man accused of murder was arranged as retribution for the shooting of Lizarraga, at the direction of Centurion Chairman Donald Payne,” the claim asserts.
“DOE 1 was led to believe that retribution against him would be swift if he reported the abuse he suffered. As a probationary officer who was just beginning his career, DOE 1 understood the power of the Centurions to set him up for failure and end his career, or worse, harm or kill him,” the claim explained.
“Following the assault, and until he suffered a physical injury, the detective felt like a member of a gang, helpless to safely escape the Centurions,” the claim concluded.
