The Associated Press
CHICAGO, Ill. — A Chicago police officer is suing her former supervisor for sex discrimination, claiming she was sent on dangerous assignments, resulting in her being injured on the job.
At the center of Donna Lewis’ lawsuit is the allegation she was wrongly denied a special assignment in Washington to assist with crowd control during street demonstrations at an International Monetary Fund conference in 2002.
Lewis claims Lt. Terence Williams told her she couldn’t go because she was female.
Responding in court filings, Williams said he told Lewis she couldn’t go because a departmental memo said female officers could attend only in pairs, since they would have to share hotel rooms and that no other females in the district wanted to go.
Dana Kurtz, Lewis’ attorney, disputed that directive, saying other lone female officers paired up with women officers from other districts. She added a female officer from another district also stayed in a hotel room alone.
“I was denied specifically because I was a woman, and I find that to be inappropriate,” Lewis, 42, said in published reports. “I worked really hard to get to where I was and for me to be singled out because of my gender was wrong.”
Lewis filed a grievance with the union, which then referred it to the department’s internal affairs division. She also filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Williams retaliated, trying to send her on investigative calls alone and rerouting her from other calls to more dangerous ones, the lawsuit alleges. Lewis also alleges Williams frequently assigned her new partners..
On March 13, 2003, Lewis was on her way to a robbery call when she was reassigned to a narcotics case, she said. She was injured when another officer unintentionally struck her with a sledge hammer while forcing their way into a residence. She has since been on police disability.
Williams’ attorney said in filings that Williams was not working that day and accused Lewis of hatching a “farfetched conspiracy” to hold Williams responsible for her injuries for financial gain.
A federal judge originally threw out Lewis’ lawsuit, but a federal appeals court overturned the decision and ordered a trial, which is scheduled to begin Monday.