Even as a young street cop trying to grow the Los Angeles Police Department in the mid-’90s, Kristine Klotz says she was quick to call out racism in the workplace. What is right and what is wrong is not right, he told himself that he was going to mess with a feather.
So she didn’t hesitate to speak up last summer when she learned that a male supervisor in the prestigious Robbery-Homicide unit where she worked had compared female detectives to prostitutes on Figueroa Street.
To make it in the LAPD, department veterans say, you need a thick skin. But Klotz, 54, says Figueroa’s comments were just a small part of the abuse the department faces.
Klotz said that after multiple complaints about her mistreatment by department officials were ignored, she and another female Robbery-Homicide investigator got help from the Board of Police Commissioners, the LAPD’s community watchdog. They didn’t hear anything for weeks.
Finally the answer came, not the one Klotz was expecting.
In a lawsuit filed this year in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Klotz claims the LAPD retaliated against him. He alleges that he was demoted and placed under internal investigation within months.
The lawsuit accuses current top LAPD officials, including Deputy Chief Marc Reina, and Capt. Scot Williams and Robin Petillo for causing emotional distress and creating a hostile work environment. The suit names two women, Petillo and Lt. Blanca Lopez; some defendants are men. A follow-up letter to the Police Commission names the vigilante investigator who identified Figueroa, Christopher Marsden.
Emails from The Times to the work accounts of the indicted officials were not answered.
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. The private law firm representing the defendants, including the city, asked the judge for more time before responding to Klotz’s lawsuit in court.
A 29-year veteran of the department with a long list of criminal investigations to his name, Klotz said he had no choice but to turn to the court system as he fought to regain both his job and his reputation. The grief that lasted for many months, he said, “opened my eyes to see a completely different way of thinking where there is a great pride I had for this organization.”
Dealing with persistent sexual harassment complaints will be among the pressing issues facing LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell, who was appointed to the job this month, pending City Council approval. He will also be expected to reform the disciplinary system that some oppose, which seems to punish the accuser more than the accused.
Since 2019, the city of Los Angeles has paid at least $11 million in damages for discrimination, retaliation and other gender-based workplace disputes brought by LAPD officers, according to a Times review of data obtained through a public records request. That figure does not include at least $12 million in damages awarded to LAPD women by the city that appealed after losing in court.
In addition, a dozen cases involving police women’s complaints about harassment and discrimination are still pending. Many of the claims were previously unreported, including one by a sergeant who says he was barred from “direct retaliation” for cooperating with an Interior Department investigation into a former deputy chief accused of planting a tracking device in the car of his former domestic partner, an LAPD officer.
In another incident, a car theft investigator says she was abused by a male colleague after their relationship broke up. And at the Hollenbeck Unit, which has seen investigations and leadership changes in recent months, a number of female sworn officers and female employees allege they faced retaliation for reporting misconduct.
While some have long seen the LAPD say that decades of defamatory reports and court orders have forced the department to address the issue, others, including civil rights attorney Connie Rice, say a culture of disrespect and misogyny still exists and that women in uniform continue to face barriers to advancement. .
Much of the abuse has moved online to pro-LAPD social media groups that reflect “the kind of evil MAGA thing going on,” she said.
“I think the DNA of the culture is still ‘Women shouldn’t be here,'” Rice said. “No carpet is acceptable, it’s like a carpet that is illegal.”
Toward the end of his time with Robbery-Homicide, Klotz said, he felt like he had a target on his back.
Klotz argues that he was ordered to perform menial tasks and forced to check every time he left the office, much like a high school student asking for a pass in the hall. When he went out to wash his coffee cup or use the photocopier, he said, his boss would text him wanting to know where he was. Then one day last summer, he arrived at work to find that his key card access had been revoked.
Deciding not to take the shame of “sitting down,” Klotz and his partner, Det. Jennifer Hammer, wrote a letter to the Police Commission in September 2023 asking it to intervene in “the recent harassment, discrimination and retaliation that she and other female police officers have endured.”
“The misconduct has not stopped and is getting worse,” the letter said. Hammer filed his own complaint against the department.
Klotz has been the subject of at least two internal investigations. He says the complaints against him – one alleging that he acted inappropriately towards another official and the other alleging an illegal employee – were “fabricated” as a way to punish him for speaking out.
In January, he was demoted to the rank of detective, assigned to the auto theft unit in the San Fernando Valley. He received an 18% raise and now reports to a junior detective who was previously his subordinate.
Even after years on the job, Klotz has maintained his unconventional sense of humor. But she clenched her jaw and her voice choked with emotion as she described the shame she felt when she walked into the Van Nuys police station for the first time earlier this year, and felt the stares of her colleagues.
The past few months have been very stressful, he said. He started smoking again, almost ten years after he quit smoking. He said that more than once he cried in his car outside of work.
“I didn’t think that at the end of my career I would have to deal with the constant abuse, the retaliation that I endured by senior management and senior management,” said Klotz.
Growing up in Long Beach on a steady diet of “Charlie’s Angels” reruns, Klotz dreamed of going into law enforcement from an early age. A high school class on courts and law further piqued his interest. He said he had job opportunities in other departments in his early 20s, but he had been waiting for an offer from the LAPD.
His dream was to always work for a detective, preferably to investigate murder cases. Finally he achieved his goal, he joined the assassination unit in the Valley area. That led to his first encounter with what he says is a toxic lifestyle.
Before blowing the whistle on the men’s murders, Klotz was among a group of female investigators who sued what they called a Valley-like situation, where some of her male colleagues were abusive and harassed women in the office.
Klotz and other women say they are used to being called “guests” when they don’t belong. One male detective allegedly bragged about sexually abusing the deputy chief’s wife and was accused of sending an inappropriate email from his work account to a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney.
The city denies the allegations in the lawsuit, which is still pending.
Klotz said the experience in the case taught him to document everything, including the many pleading emails he sent to department officials asking them to intervene in the murder.
Like other women who have reported misconduct, she said she has learned to tune out office news and rumors about her demotion. Some of the grapevine talk has gotten back to him – that he is a loose cannon or stirring the pot to shut down complaints accusing him of misconduct.
Nothing is true, he says. And he’s not looking for a payday, he says, countering another common criticism of the department’s detectives.
Corinne Bendersky, a UCLA professor of management and organizations who has studied the work culture of all Los Angeles city departments, said the mishandling of complaints from women and minorities is not isolated to the LAPD.
“Race relations are worse in the Police Department, gender relations are worse in the Fire Department,” said Bendersky, who conducted surveys, focus groups and interviews with thousands of city employees. He said the survey revealed widespread anger across genders and races about the Police Department’s continued efforts to hire more women and officers of color.
Klotz said the department conducted an investigation into his complaints and found them to be baseless, despite the evidence he presented that he retaliated by reporting misconduct by higher-ups.
Last week – after The Times asked about his case – Klotz was called into a meeting with Deputy Head Emada Tingirides. Klotz says he was told he was being reinstated to his former detective rank, with his pay back. He continues to work in the Valley, investigating car thefts.
He plans to retire at the end of the year, but Klotz said he will continue to fight in court to bring accountability after years of LAPD failure to improve itself.
“The damage has been done, they have hurt me and they will not take it back. They won’t be able to fix me,” he said before his old rank was returned. “They spoiled me at the end of my career.”
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