Long Beach Policewomen Call Sexual Harassment Endemic : Bias: Testimony about repeated incidents in the department marked suit by two ex-officers who won $3.1 million. They say abusive treatment ruined their careers.

When Long Beach Police Officer Lindsey Allison would walk into the canine unit’s office, a male colleague frequently leered at her while tucking in his shirt in a suggestive manner. It was his way of emphasizing what several officers recently testified was his attitude toward the elite unit, where Allison also worked: “It’s a man’s detail and it will always be a man’s detail.”

Officer Melissa Clerkin also saw the Long Beach Police Department as a male enclave. After she complained that her sergeant and onetime lover was harassing her, she said, other male officers retaliated by refusing to provide her back-up assistance, by calling her vulgar names and by sending her offensive messages over police car computers.

During a monthlong trial in federal court on a sexual harassment suit filed by Allison and Clerkin, they and other policewomen testified that such conduct was endemic in the Long Beach Police Department. Witnesses said male officers often used obscene language to degrade women and retaliated if a female colleague complained about it.

On Thursday, after deliberating for less than three hours, a four-woman, two-man jury awarded $3.1 million in damages to Allison and Clerkin, both of whom left the department in 1988. It was the largest judgment of any type against the city in more than a decade. The city is expected to appeal.

“I don’t think it makes up for how I was maligned and vilified by them. They ruined my life and my career,” Clerkin, 35, said Friday.

“We’re so happy we won,” said Allison, 33. “For so long, we were told we were the problem. We couldn’t get along. How good it feels to prove it wasn’t us.”

Allison, the first woman assigned to the canine unit, left the department on a stress-related disability. She said some fellow officers told her graphic sex stories, urinated outdoors in her presence and allowed their dogs to attack her.

Several policewomen contacted Friday declined to comment on the lawsuit or to say if working conditions have changed since Allison and Clerkin left. Most said they were afraid of repercussions. Others said police administrators do not allow them to speak to the media.

During the trial, Estella Martinez, a homicide detective, testified that while she was a cadet in the Long Beach Police Academy in 1985, she and other recruits, in the presence of supervisors, were instructed to run and sing in cadence a suggestive rhyme that began: “I wish all women were holes in the road.”

Police administrators denied any knowledge of such a chant. Acting Cmdr. Linda Fierro testified she never heard it, either as a recruit or as a trainer at the academy.

Officer Cheryl Perkins testified she heard officers laughingly say they would not back up Clerkin on calls. Tom Reeves, an attorney for the city, told the jury that the department was understaffed at the time and many calls were delayed.

Former Long Beach Police Officer Melissa Williams, now with the Pismo Beach Police Department, testified that she was called an obscene name by her partner during her first night on the job. Williams also said some male officers sometimes blocked transmissions between dispatchers and women officers they did not like.

There also was testimony that, on at least one occasion, male officers in the canine unit viewed a pornographic movie while on the job.

Long Beach Police Chief Lawrence Binkley refused to discuss the verdict.

During the trial, however, Binkley testified that when he joined the department as chief in 1987, he recognized that sexual harassment was a problem and soon ordered training for officers to prevent it. Binkley also created a women’s issues committee, which invited women officers to express their concerns.

Binkley also testified that he acted on any incidents of sexual harassment that came to his attention. He said he initiated an internal affairs investigation when Clerkin complained that Sgt. George Hiscox, with whom she had had a relationship for three years, was threatening her and had assaulted her. Hiscox eventually was reprimanded.

“If that sort of conduct was true, it had to be stopped,” Binkley told the jury. “Not only for her, but for the rest of the organization.”

But Barbara Hadsell, an attorney for Allison and Clerkin, argued that supervisors did little to stop offensive conduct short of ordering “a full-blown internal affairs investigation,” which can cause repercussions for the officers who complain.

In Clerkin’s case, for example, rumors detailing intimate details of her life circulated throughout the department within two days of the internal affairs investigation, Hadsell told jurors.

Allison and Clerkin say they have no intention of returning to police work. Allison is enrolled in Cypress College, studying photography and learning to work with computers. Clerkin, who is unemployed, said she also plans to return to college.