It came as no real surprise when just before Thanksgiving a court granted a $2.25 million harassment settlement to LAPD canine bomb unit officer Patricia Fuller. As the only female officer in the unit, Fuller was relentlessly harassed and discriminated against by her male colleagues and supervisors, falsely accused of misconduct, denied a promotion, and barred from meetings on training issues. A Los Angeles County Superior Court jury also awarded $3.6 million to an officer who said he was demoted and suffered retaliation when he defended Fuller. Why he deserved more money than the actual victim of the harassment is a bit of a puzzle.
The LAPD has a terrible record on women's issues right now, with the revelation back in October that there was a backlog of 7,000 untested rape kits, at least 200 of which were already beyond the 10-year statute of limitations, increasing by up to 900 cases each year. According to U.S. Justice Department statistics, more than 500,000 unsolved crimes, including 169,000 rapes, have untested DNA evidence.
The backlog was blamed on a lack of criminologists to process them, even though the department had received nearly $4 million in grants in recent years to address the problem. Police Chief William Bratton said the LAPD had a five-year plan to eliminate the backlog at a cost of $7 to $10 million.
However, the negative publicity motivated them to speed things up a bit, and back at the beginning of November the LAPD announced a plan to increase funding for DNA analysts and support staff. The plan was still underfunded by nearly a million dollars, and was dependent on obtaining additional federal funding to cover the gap. With the current economic situation, it's unlikely that federal dollars will be available to take care of the shortfall, which will mean a continuing backlog of unprocessed rape kits.
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