The claim from a top LAPD detective is the latest claim that women face a toxic culture

Even as a young street cop trying to work her way up the Los Angeles Police Department in the mid-1990s, Kristine Klotz said she was quick to express sexism on the job. Right is right and wrong is wrong, she always told herself, knowing that would ruffle some feathers.

So she didn’t hesitate to speak up last summer when she learned that a male supervisor at the vaunted Robbery-Homicide unit where she worked had allegedly compared female detectives to sex workers on Figueroa Street.

To get into the LAPD, department veterans say, you need a thick skin. But Klotz, 54, claims Figueroa’s comments were just the tip of an iceberg of verbal abuse women in the unit faced.

Klotz said that after repeated complaints about her mistreatment were ignored by department officials, she and another female robbery and homicide detective sought help from the Board of Police Commissioners, the LAPD’s civilian oversight body. They heard nothing for weeks.

Eventually an answer came, just not the one Klotz expected.

In a whistleblower lawsuit filed this year in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Klotz claims the LAPD retaliated against her. She claims that within a few months she was demoted, transferred and subjected to an internal investigation.

The lawsuit accuses several current high-ranking LAPD officials, including Deputy Chief Marc Reina, and Capts. Scot Williams and Robin Petillo of inflicting emotional distress and creating a hostile work environment. The suit names two women, Petillo and Lt. Blanca Lopez; the rest of the defendants are men. A follow-up letter to the Police Commission names the supervising detective who allegedly made Figueroa’s comments as Christopher Marsden.

Emails from The Times to the work accounts of the officials singled out in the lawsuit were not returned.

The LAPD said it does not discuss pending litigation and referred questions to the city attorney’s office, which did not respond to an email seeking comment. A private law firm representing the defendants, including the city, has asked a judge for more time before responding to Klotz’s lawsuit in court.

Klotz is 29 years old and has a long list of high-profile criminal investigations to her name. She said she had no choice but to turn to the legal system as she fought to restore both her career and her reputation. The months-long ordeal, she said, “opened my eyes to a completely different way of thinking when I was so proud of this organization.”

Addressing persistent sexual harassment complaints will be among the pressing issues facing new LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell, who was appointed to the position this month pending City Council approval. He will also be expected to overhaul a disciplinary system that some say appears to punish the accuser more than the accused.

Since 2019, the city of Los Angeles has paid out at least $11 million in damages for cases of gender-based discrimination, retaliation and other workplace conflicts led by LAPD officers, according to a Times review of data obtained through a public records request registers. That figure does not include at least $12 million in damages awarded by juries to women in the LAPD, which the city is appealing after being defeated in court.

In addition, there are still a dozen cases pending regarding complaints from female officers about harassment and discrimination. Several claims have previously gone unreported, including a sergeant who says she was denied a transfer in “direct retaliation” for her cooperation in an Internal Affairs investigation into a former assistant chief accused of installing a tracking device on his former domestic partner. fellow LAPD officer.

In another case, a car theft detective says she was tormented by a male colleague after their relationship ended. And in the Hollenbeck Division, which has seen investigations and leadership changes in recent months, several sworn female and civilian employees alleged they faced retaliation for reporting misconduct.

While some longtime LAPD observers argue that decades of damning reports and court orders have forced the department to confront the problem, others, including civil rights attorney Connie Rice, say a crude, misogynistic culture still exists and that women in uniform still encounter obstacles on the way to progress. .

Much of the abuse has moved online to pro-LAPD social media groups where there is a “frat-boy-esque MAGA misogyny,” she said.

“I think the DNA of the culture is still, ‘Women shouldn’t be here,’” Rice said. “There is no welcome mat, it’s more of a no-go mat.”

By the end of her time at Robbery-Homicide, Klotz said, she felt like she had a target on her back.

Klotz claims she was assigned to perform menial tasks and forced to check in whenever she left the office, much like a high school student asking for a hall pass. When she walked away to rinse her coffee mug or use the copier, she said, her supervisor would text her asking where she was. When she came to work one day last summer, she discovered that access to her key card had been revoked.

Determined not to suffer the humiliation while sitting down, Klotz and a colleague, Det. Jennifer Hammer wrote a letter to the Police Commission in September 2023 asking it to intervene in “the recent harassment, discrimination and retaliation she and other female officers had suffered.”

“The misconduct has not stopped and has continued to worsen,” the letter said. Hammer has filed her own complaint against the department.

Klotz has been the subject of at least two internal investigations. She says the complaints against her — one for allegedly making an inappropriate gesture toward another officer and the other for confronting a civilian employee — were “fabricated” as a way to punish her for speaking out.

In January, she was demoted to a lower detective position and sent to a car theft unit in the San Fernando Valley. She took an 18% pay cut and now reports to a younger detective previously under her command.

Even after years on the job, Klotz has retained her unusually cheerful demeanor. But her jaw clenches and her voice thickens with emotion as she describes the humiliation she felt when she first walked into the Van Nuys police station earlier this year and felt the stares of her colleagues.

The past few months have taken a heavy mental toll, she said. She started smoking again almost ten years after quitting cold turkey. She said she has broken down more than once and cried in her car outside of work.

“I never imagined that at the end of my career I would be subject to the constant harassment and retaliation I suffered from upper management and commanders,” Klotz said.

Klotz grew up in Long Beach on a steady diet of “Charlie’s Angels” reruns and dreamed of joining the police force from an early age. A high school class on courts and the law further piqued her interest. She said she had jobs in other departments in her early 20s, but she was waiting for an offer from the LAPD.

Her dream was always to work her way up to detective, preferably murder investigation. She eventually achieved her goal by joining a Valley homicide unit. That led to her first encounter with what she claims is a toxic culture.

Before raising the alarm on Robbery-Homicide, Klotz was among a group of female detectives who filed a lawsuit over what they described as a fraternity in the Valley where some male colleagues were vulgar and offensive toward women in the office.

Klotz and other women said they were routinely called “tourists” who didn’t belong. A male detective allegedly boasted of sexual exploits with the wife of a now-deputy chief and was accused of sending an inappropriate email from his work account to a female deputy district attorney in Los Angeles County.

The city has denied the allegations in the lawsuit, which is still being litigated.

Klotz said experience in that case taught her to document everything, including the numerous plea emails she sent to higher-ups in the department asking her to intervene with Robbery-Homicide.

Like other women who have reported misconduct, she said she has mainly learned to ignore office gossip and rumors about her demotion. Some of the rumors have gotten back to her: how she is a loose cannon or stirring the pot to cover up complaints accusing her of misconduct.

None of it is true, she says. And she’s not looking for a payday, either, she says, refuting another common criticism of whistleblowers in the department.

Corinne Bendersky, a professor of management and organizations at UCLA who has studied workplace culture in various departments in the city of Los Angeles, said poor handling of complaints by women and ethnic minorities is not an isolated incident to the LAPD.

“Race relations are worse in police, and gender relations are worse in fire,” said Bendersky, who conducted surveys, focus groups and interviews with thousands of city employees. She said the surveys showed strong resentment, across gender and racial lines, toward the police department’s continued efforts to hire more women and officers of color.

Klotz said the department investigated her complaints and found them unfounded, despite evidence alleging she was the subject of retaliation for reporting misconduct committed by senior executives.

Last week — after The Times inquired about her case — Klotz was called to a meeting with Deputy Chief Emada Tingirides. Klotz says she was told she was being returned to her previous rank as a detective, which will return her salary. She remains stationed in the Valley and investigates car thefts.

She plans to retire at the end of this year, but Klotz said she will continue to fight in court for accountability after years of the LAPD’s failure to improve itself.

“The damage has been done, they hurt me and they can never take it back. They will never be able to restore me,” she said before her old rank was restored. “They ruined me at the end of my career.”