Two years after police gunned down Ezell Ford, an unarmed black man who suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, the officers involved sued the city of Los Angeles for racial discrimination. According to Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Officers Sharlton Wampler and Tony Villegas, who are Caucasian and Latino, respectively, they’ve been “benched” because of their race.
Neither officer was prosecuted or fired from the job altogether. Wampler and Villegas were only removed from the field and placed on desk duty. But on Wednesday they filed a lawsuit claiming they’ve been “denied assignments, transfers, overtime, coveted assignments, advancement in rank and other opportunities for employment” since 2014. The two argue that their race and Ford’s race informed their punishment, and that they’ve suffered ever since the shooting.
“An African-American officer that was recently involved in a lethal shooting of an individual that was found out of policy by the Police Chief and the Police Commission, was only taken out of the field for a short period of time and is now in a highly sought-after position in Metropolitan Division,” their lawsuit states. “Clearly, there is a different standard of discipline meted out to officers solely on account of their race and color of their skin.”
Wampler and Villegas seek monetary compensation for what they believe are clear signs of racial bias in the form of lost wages and reputation damage.
“The race of plaintiffs, and the race of the African-American that was shot by plaintiffs, while performing their duties as peace officers, was a substantial motivating reason for causing damages and injuries to plaintiffs,” says the lawsuit.
The two gang enforcement officers shot Ford following an “investigative stop” in August 2014. The 25-year-old was walking around his neighborhood, when Wampler and Villegas decided to stop him because he looked nervous. According to the LAPD’s version of events, Ford didn’t follow orders when they pulled up in their car, fought with Wampler, and reached for the officer’s gun. But witnesses painted a very different story, saying there was no struggle at all and Ford was sprawled on the ground when police shot him in the back.
“They laid him out and for whatever reason, they shot him in the back, knowing mentally, he has complications,” Ford’s cousin reported at the time. “Every officer in this area, from the Newton Division, knows that — that this child has mental problems.”
The Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, a civilian oversight committee with no authoritative power, investigated the shooting and unanimously agreed that Wampler and Villegas used excessive force.
Nevertheless, LAPD Police Chief Charlie Beck cleared the officers of wrongdoing. The decision was based on investigators’ alleged discovery of DNA on Wampler’s gun and scratch marks on the officer’s hands.
One year after they avoided prosecution, Wampler and Villegas are now claiming that they’ve been retaliated against internally because of their race and “politically”-motivated commissioners who found them at fault.
But the fact that Wampler and Villegas are still on the job highlights a privilege that cops across the country enjoy. It is extremely rare for them to face criminal charges, but it is also rare that they’re punished at all. Most officers have strong union protections that almost guarantee they can’t be fired. Those accused of wrongdoing get monetary compensation and have their records cleared. On the rare occasion that an officer is fired for something, union representatives are heavily involved in the appeals process, which tends to happen behind closed doors, and the terminated cops are reinstated.
In Los Angeles, no officer has been charged for a fatal shooting in the last 15 years, despite shooting an average of one person a week. In 2015, the department accounted for the most fatal shootings by a police force in the U.S.