Supervisors Seek Sexism Inquiry

Alarmed by sexually derogatory comments posted on an Internet Web site, two Los Angeles County supervisors called for an investigation Tuesday into allegations of sexism in the Sheriff’s Department.

Supervisors Gloria Molina and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke asked Sheriff Lee Baca to work with the county’s affirmative action office while special counsel Merrick Bobb--who monitors the agency for the board--prepares a report on gender equality within the massive law enforcement agency. The supervisors want the reports at least 30 days before they begin deliberations on the department’s budget.

“It’s important we do something,” Burke said in an interview, “so that the women who are part of that department do not feel they are part of an alien society.”

Molina and Burke said they were disturbed that the deputies’ union last week offered a linkage--through its Web site--to a Digital City chat room. The site contained anonymous e-mails from purported male deputies who expressed their resistance to female colleagues in sexually hostile terms.

“It was very discouraging to hear there are deputies out patrolling our neighborhoods with those attitudes,” Molina said. “It speaks to an attitude that is prevalent in the department.”

The e-mail generated by the Digital City survey was in response to Baca’s proposal that the department bypass male deputies in an effort to promote more women to patrol duty. Molina said Baca’s initiative was “inappropriate. . . . A lot of us were offended by the actions of Sheriff Baca,” who later backed away from his proposal under pressure from the union.

Molina said the union’s decision to link its Web site to the abusive Digital City e-mail was far worse than Baca’s plan.

The supervisor said she invited the union to address the board Tuesday. “I thought they might have something to say to us,” Molina said, “but they said they don’t understand what’s going on.” She quoted a union official as saying, “I just don’t get it.”

Union representatives--as well as Sheriff’s Department officials--declined to comment Tuesday. Capt. Doyle Campbell, a department spokesman, said officials wanted to review the supervisors’ proposal before discussing the issue publicly.

Union officials have previously defended their decision to link up with Digital City, saying the messages were a “broad-based issue of interest to the membership.” Although the union posted a disclaimer, it severed the link to the chat room last Wednesday after receiving shocked phone calls from members.

The supervisors’ motion calls for a report on not only the attitudes revealed in the e-mails, but also on sexual harassment in the agency and the existence of so-called deputy gangs reported by The Times last month. The board is expected to take a vote on the two supervisors’ call for the investigations next week.

“I thought the environment [in the department] had changed fairly dramatically,” Molina said, “but some of the articles that have come out have been fairly alarming.”

Molina and Burke also noted that the county spent $660,000 last year to settle sexual harassment and discrimination claims against the Sheriff’s Department. The figure accounts for nearly 40% of all employment discrimination settlements by the county government.

Making matters worse, sources disclosed Tuesday that the department is recommending settling a sexual harassment lawsuit--brought by former Deputy Jamila Bayati--for $275,000.

In 1995, Jamila Bayati retired from the force after enduring what she described as pervasive harassment. She claimed that one sergeant put up a poster of a topless female with a photo of him pasted at her crotch, simulating oral sex, and gathered other male deputies to watch a video of half-nude women singing an obscene song. A deputy hounded her for dates and when she rebuffed him, told her co-workers she was a lesbian. Another deputy openly referred to sanitary napkins as “manhole covers.”