A lawsuit filed by a former longtime Los Angeles police sergeant, who alleged the SWAT unit is run by a “SWAT Mafia” of veteran officers who favor using deadly force and ostracize those who oppose their behavior, should be dismissed because he is not the whistleblower he claims to be, the City Attorney’s Office contends in new court papers.
Sgt. Tim Colomey joined SWAT in 2008 and was the most senior sergeant in the unit. He filed his whistleblower retaliation lawsuit in January 2021 in Los Angeles Superior Court.
“Under the surface … SWAT is controlled by a group of (officers) who glamorize the use of lethal force and who direct the promotions of officers who share the same values while maligning the reputations of officers who do not,” according to the suit, which seeks unspecified damages.
But according to court papers filed Monday with Judge Jon R. Takasugi asking for dismissal of the plaintiff’s suit, Colomey has not presented a basic case for whistleblowing because he did not engage in “protected activity” as required by the state Labor Code.
“In other words, plaintiff is not a whistleblower,” the City Attorney’s Office’s court papers state. “The conduct plaintiff reported consists solely of internal personnel matters.”
Finding that Colomey’s complaints constituted whistleblower activity “would thrust the courts into micromanaging SWAT’s training, selection, internal communication between supervisors and non-supervisors, deployment practices and the LAPD’s use of...
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