LA Jury Finally Gets One Right
In a town where jurors will give the benefit of the doubt to people like OJ, Phil Spector, Robert Blake, Cardinal Mahoney and Warren Christopher, I was surprised to read that an LA jury cleared the LAPD of being mean to Mitch Grobeson.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s Grobeson, who calls himself Sergeant Mitch, was so preoccupied with his homosexuality that he negated his responsibility as a police officer to promote his personal activist gay agenda. Several gay LAPD officers told me how sick they were about his latest lawsuit against the LAPD, and how he had hurt the reputation and mainstreaming of gay officers.
During his failed career, Grobeson’s gay peers have performed their duties with steadfastness and quiet heroism. Some have been promoted to command positions. They got there not because they were gay, but because they were good cops. Conversely, Grobeson thought he deserved his badge and promotions because he was gay. In the end, even the jury disbelieved him by a wide margin.
Grobeson says he’ll appeal, but overturning a jury verdict is almost impossible. And unless he starts filing age-discrimination lawsuits against future employers, it’s not likely that he’ll darken LA’s doorstep any longer. No longer the gay blade, we can only hope that Mitch will devolve into the bitchy old queen he always was.
December 22nd, 2007 at 3:30 pm
Hillary thinks she deserves the Presidency. It must be a ‘liberal’ issue.
December 24th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Clark:
You are right on on this one, and I’m a died-in-the-wool liberal (also a lesbian, former LAPD specialist reserve officer and civilian Board of Rights member, and former sworn officer in Georgia and Missouri).
I supported Mitch’s initial lawsuit, because it brought to light what we all knew…large law enforcement agencies would not accept gay people who are “out”. Back then, it was very true, but law enforcement in general and especially the LAPD have come a long way in addressing the issue of gays and lesbians in uniform. They even awarded an open lesbian officer, Sgt. Lisa Phillips, the Medal of Valor after the LA riots, not because she was gay, but because she and her partner, without regard for their own safety, entered the war zone at Florence & Normandie and saved a woman’s life.
As many gay and lesbian officers will tell you, Mitch’s second lawsuit was not about benefitting the community at large, but was all about Mitch and money. And I agree with the assessment that his return to the LAPD and being a constant thorn in the butt of the command staff, didn’t make things easy for any of the gay officers who just wanted to be able to do their jobs without any longer having to hide and deny who they are.
He did a good thing by shining a light on the homophobia that existed in the late 80s at the LAPD. But his subsequent efforts, based on his erroneous belief that nothing had changed, and that he was the only one who could change it, served only to interfere with and demean the progress we worked so hard with LAPD to accomplish and implement.
Had he returned to work, followed the directives of his commanders, and had been satisfied with serving the citizens of Los Angeles, he’d still be on the job today, preparing for retirement. But he chose a more self-serving path, and I’m happy the jury saw that, and hope that the testimony of those of us who helped usher in that change in the department, by working within the department instead of attacking it, helped resolve this issue this issue once and for all.
It’s my personal opinion that Mitch wasn’t discriminated against after his return to the LAPD…he got in trouble because he thought he could make his own rules for his return to duty. Why should the LAPD and taxpayers be punished for his delusions of grandeur?