A federal jury has awarded over $500,000 to a former Black female Warren police officer, most of it due to the department’s failure to train officers to protect against race and gender bias.
The jury reached verdicts on the eight issues Thursday in the case that pitted former officer DeSheila Howlett against the city on allegations it created a hostile work environment through racial and sexual harassment by three officers. The decisions followed more than a day of deliberations following an 11-day trial in front of U.S. District Judge Terrence Berg in Detroit.
The verdicts fall far short of the $14 million sought by Howlett, and resulted in six of eight verdicts in favor of the defense side.
“We are very pleased with the verdict,” said attorney Raechel Badalamenti, representing the city. “While we are not sure Mr. Howlett deserved anything, we are pleased the jury saw through the claims and against the $14 million demand Ms. Howlett made at trial.”
She said Howlett was promoted over her 11 years and left the job voluntarily.
Howlett’s attorney, Leonard Mungo, said there will be an appeal.
The jury decided the city “failed to train its officers and employees in a manner that violated the Equal Protection Clause” of the 14th Amendment, causing Howlett “to be subjected to discrimination based on her race or being female.”
The total judgment is $575,000, of which $502,000 is for back pay for Howlett, according to court documents.
Also awarded was $50,000 for racial and/or gender bias from 2014 to 2017 by police officer Shawn Johnson, $20,000 for non-economic damages and $3,000 for medical expenses to pay for her therapy.
Howlett was not awarded future compensation by the jury because she was offered her job back, Badalamenti said.
The jury found officers Anwar Khan and Lawrence Garner did not discriminate against Howlett based on her race or gender.
In her complaint, Howlett alleged the city did nothing about the alleged racial and gender bias despite her complaints. She contended the Warren Police Department was notorious for engaging in racially discriminatory behavior and failed to provide proper diversity training for officers.
Eight of 12 original defendants were dismissed during earlier proceedings.
The $502,000 award against the city was for its failure to train officers in 2015 and 2016 under former commissioner Jere Green, Badalamenti said, although she noted the jury indicated Green did not create a hostile work environment.
“The city agrees more training was needed for police, especially in the area of mental health, and already revamped these areas of training in and after 2017,” Badalamenti said.
Under Commissioner Wiliam Dwyer, the Warren Police Department in 2021 was the largest municipal police department in the state to be accredited by the Michigan Law Enforcement Accreditation Commission.
“To maintain that high status, diversity training is mandatory every year for all employees so the issues the plaintiff was able to convince a jury existing back in 2017 when she walked off the job have been addressed by Commissioner Dwyer,” Badalamenti said.
Dwyer was rehired as commissioner in 2017 after serving in the post from 2008 to 2010.
Howlett claimed in the lawsuit Johnson’s sexual harassment included calling her his “slave girl, sniffing her suggestively, and rubbing his hands through her hair,” according to court documents.
Johnson’s racial harassment included comparing her to the gorilla image on the label of a Gorilla Glue bottle and making derogatory, racially stereotypical remarks about food she brought to work, she said in the complaint.
She alleged other remarks by Johnson, who in a deposition “repeatedly defended his actions as lacking any intent to harass, and said that he thought his various comments were acceptable repartee between co-workers who had a friendly rapport,” Berg wrote in the prior opinion.
Police officials warned and disciplined Johnson, with supervisors saying his discipline would be removed from his personnel file in one year if there were no other incidents. He was required to receive diversity training but didn’t take it until 2017, two years following the complaint against him and after Howlett left.
