{"id":173531,"date":"2012-04-06T12:09:53","date_gmt":"2012-04-06T08:09:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=173531"},"modified":"2012-04-06T12:10:45","modified_gmt":"2012-04-06T08:10:45","slug":"armenian-american-police-detective-awarded-150k-in-discrimination-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2012\/04\/06\/armenian-american-police-detective-awarded-150k-in-discrimination-case.html","title":{"rendered":"Armenian-American Police Detective Awarded $150K in Discrimination Case"},"content":{"rendered":"

A jury on Thursday awarded an Armenian American police detective $150,000 for claims that he faced on-the-job discrimination and harassment because of his ethnicity, his attorney said, the Glendale News-Press reports<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n

The detective who filed the lawsuit, Steve Karagiosian, testified in Los Angeles County Superior Court that detectives and sergeants in the police department regularly used derogative terms \u2014 such as \u201ctowel heads\u201d \u2014 in referring to Armenians.<\/p>\n

The decision comes two weeks after a jury awarded former Burbank Police Deputy Chief William Taylor nearly $1.3 million based on claims that he was fired in retaliation for refusing to sign off on the terminations of minority officers and for raising concerns about how a sexual harassment incident was being handled.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Burbank Police Department has been proven to have ethnic harassment within its department,\u201d said Karagiosian\u2019s attorney, Solomon Gresen, after the jury\u2019s verdict came in. \u201cDet. Karagiosian had complained for years and the jury\u2019s verdict should demonstrate to the city that this is a problem that needs to be immediately addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Named \u201cOfficer of the Year\u201d in 2007, Karagiosian is still employed with the department. The lawsuit, Gresen said, was not about economic damages.<\/p>\n

And even with the jury coming down on his side, Gresen said his client feared the verdict would create a whole new set of problems back at the department.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Karagiosian is gratified that the jury found in his favor, but fears retaliation from the city attorney\u2019s office and the Burbank Police Department,\u201d Gresen said.<\/p>\n

While the jury must still make determinations on more specific questions, Burbank City Atty. Amy Albano said the city was disappointed with the verdict.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was interesting in the verdict, is that the amount awarded was reduced,\u201d Albano said, noting that the amount was lower that than the suggested $225,000 because the jury felt Karagiosian could have avoided some of the damages because some of the incidents were not reported to the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city takes issues of harassment very seriously,\u201d Albano said. \u201cWhen we are informed, we take appropriate action. That was done in this case. If not informed about an issue of harassment, the city is not able to take an action.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jurors deliberated Karagiosian\u2019s case for about a day before delivering a verdict.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s appalling the city has spent millions of dollars in defense costs to deny these claims when they could\u2019ve spent far less in training and dispute resolution and they would have already fixed the problem,\u201d Gresen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t ask for $25 million,\u201d Gresen added. \u201cWhy is the city spending millions to defeat a $225,000 claim? It\u2019s a horrible use of taxpayers\u2019 money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Karagiosian was one of five former and current officers in the lawsuit. The part of the case involving Officer Cindy Guillen is expected to start May 2.<\/p>\n

The three other officers were dropped from the lawsuit, although there is a separate case pending in federal court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A jury on Thursday awarded an Armenian American police detective $150,000 for claims that he faced on-the-job discrimination and harassment because of his ethnicity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":173501,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[28902,12628,40215,40214,16928,39766,40216,26056],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173531"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}