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Who truly gets dignity, respect at police station?By MARY JO MELONE © St. Petersburg Times, published February 9, 1999 St. Petersburg police Chief Goliath Davis has a policy: His men and women are expected to treat citizens, crime suspects included, with the greatest respect and dignity. But according to the testimony of two women who have worked as sergeants during his watch, Davis' policy may have a loophole -- at least when it comes to them and sexual harassment. The two women, Karen Lea and Linda Perez, said they were told by some of Davis' top aides that he didn't believe they were credible when they accused a patrol officer of calling them at home and making crude remarks. Their complaints, made in November 1997, were never investigated. Lea quit in June 1998 when she decided she'd had enough. Last Tuesday, the city's police pension board voted her a service-related disability pension. Doctors testified that depression born of unrelieved stress had wrecked her career. Both Lea and Perez testified during a three-day pension board hearing. Lea's case was built partly on the handling of the harassing calls. The officer who allegedly made them was under her command. He was also suspected of being an alcoholic. Lea told the pension board that when the officer was drunk, he called her on several occasions at home asking if she was naked and if they could have sex. She recounted the incidents in a memo to her supervisor. He had Lea tell the chief. When she did, Davis said nothing but only "turned around and left," she said. The man then allegedly made similar calls to Perez, a 15-year veteran of the department and the manager of the police department's employee assistance program. The program refers officers and civilian employees for professional therapy, if they request it or are deemed to need it. Both women said their complaints were ignored. The man who made the calls was transferred at the chief's direction to a unit with a male supervisor. When Lea objected, she said Maj. Tim Story told her: "The chief doesn't believe you." He said, "It was personal with Davis, against you." Sgt. Perez, who still works at the department, got word that her complaints were going nowhere from someone else, assistant city attorney Robert Eschenfelder, who handled police labor relations. He said "that when the conversation took place with the chief about Karen, I was also lumped in there as being less than believable" about the sexual harassment complaints, Perez testified. Perez had no history of problems with the chief. But Lea did. She and Davis had had two previous run-ins. In 1982, long before Davis became chief, Lea accused him of harassing her by repeatedly asking her out after she refused. Davis denied it, and nothing came of the complaint. In 1990, while Curt Curtsinger was police chief, Lea accused Davis and other officers of stopping her from making an arrest of an Uhuru follower. Her complaint was thrown out. Davis was never called to testify at the pension board hearing, although the assistant city attorney who participated in the case, Mirella Murphy James, said Monday that indeed Davis did not believe Lea. The city isn't appealing the board's ruling, which gives Lea a pension of nearly $29,000 a year. Lea quit last June after Davis disciplined her for swearing about and attacking the sexual orientation of a gay civilian employee who deleted her work from a computer. Lea was suspended for 30 days and was also demoted, from sergeant back to the street. Until then, her disciplinary record was minor and intermittent. The highest job rating Lea could have gotten was a 5, and her last two evaluations ranked her close to the top both times, with scores of 4.26 in 1996 and 4.52 in 1997. Whatever her problems, those numbers were hardly the record of a bad employee.
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