By Police1 Staff
SAN GABRIEL, Calif. — Five Asian American police officers are suing a California police department over alleged racial discrimination within the department.
According to the L.A. Times, the officers allege that the San Gabriel PD harbored a hostile work environment. Employees allegedly used racial slurs and the PD refused to hire or promote Asian officers. The officers also allege that the department favored non-Asian colleagues with less training and experience for coveted assignments.
The lawsuit identified several lieutenants for engaging in “harassing behavior,” and said that managers teased Officer Nhat Huynh with comments about how a dog was afraid of being eaten because Huynh was Vietnamese.
Sunny Kim, who is Korean American, said that the department’s harassment was so bad that he left the agency last month, according to the lawsuit. When Kim complained to management about an officer who used the N-word, he was told he’d be fired if he informed anyone else about the incident, the lawsuit alleged.
The officers are seeking unspecified monetary and special damages.