A Los Angeles police captain is suing the city, alleging he has been repeatedly denied a promotion to commander because he is Latino and due to his fellow Latino captains’ complaints that the test to promote to commander is unfair to them.
Capt. Alex Baez’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit alleges whistleblower retaliation and discrimination based on ethnicity. Baez seeks unspecified damages. A representative for the City Attorney’s Office did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the suit filed Thursday.
Baez was hired in 1989 and promoted to captain in August 2018. He currently holds the rank of captain 3.
The department held an exam in 2020 for captains interested in promotions to commander and some Latino captains complained that the test’s format was unfair to them, according to the suit. In December of that year, an anonymous email was sent to dozens of command staff members complaining that a captain had mocked Latino captains who had spoken out about the alleged unfairness of the commander promotion exam, the suit states.
The email was sent to internal affairs and a personnel complaint was generated against the captain, according to the suit, which further states that then-Chief Michel Moore and other command staff members believed Baez sent the anonymous email.
The suit does not state whether Baez sent the email, but does say he believed that the communication disclosed a violation of federal and state law as well as local statues, rules or...
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