Officers Rashawnda Williams and Alexis Bush-Bailey are suing the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners for discrimination against their race and gender, reported Fox 4 Kansas City. The two allege the board is responsible for the treatment they received from Kansas City Police Department employees.
In William’s lawsuit, she claims male colleagues made sexist and racist comments around her and her supervisor didn’t address the remarks but instead participated in them. When she went to HR to report the incident, they found nothing wrong with the comments made.
“It had nothing to do with her performance as a police officer as it was riddled with mistruths, stories picked apart and badly sewn together and some flat out lies,” the suit read.
Bush-Bailey, on the other hand, claimed in her suit that she was targeted by her white supervisor.
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Bush-Bailey alleges in her lawsuit that she was targeted by her white female supervisor for her race, sex and age, leading to unfair discipline and a demotion.
Bush-Bailey said in spring 2021 she was one of only two officers assigned to the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) unit.
In another incident, Bush-Bailey said she was also disciplined for being out of uniform during a voluntary photo. The officer said she brought her uniform into work for a “women in law enforcement” photo, but realized she forgot her collar brass.
When she told her supervisor, the woman loaned her one. Bush-Bailey said in her lawsuit she was later called into a disciplinary meeting for being out of uniform. Months later, she was written up.
This isn’t the first time the department has received internal complaints regarding race and gender discrimination. Last month, Sgt. Herb Robinson filed a lawsuit claiming he was racially profiled during a traffic stop by officers from the department, reported Fox 4. He alleged the officers made “racially hostile” and “derogatory” remarks toward him.
The Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners are listed as the defendants in both Williams’ and Bush-Bailey’s lawsuits. After the latest cases of police misconduct, whether it be racist text messages or Facebook posts, it’s becoming more evident that some of the people trained to protect and serve aren’t trained to be unbiased.