Shortly after Dermot F. Shea was appointed New York City Police Commissioner, he called one of the department’s top women to his office and told her there would be some changes.
The woman, Chief Lori Pollock, was in charge of the department’s data-driven, abuse strategy and had asked to be considered the next chief of detectives. It was a coveted promotion that two of her predecessors had received, including Mr. Shea.
Instead, Chief Pollock was reappointed head of the Office of Collaborative Policing, a role she considered a demo.
That she retired last week, and on Monday filed a federal lawsuit for gender discrimination in Manhattan accusing the police commissioner and the women’s department of systematically refusing the opportunity to compete for senior leadership positions.
“After I replaced him, he switched to chief of detectives and now he’s the police commissioner,” Chief Pollock, 58, said in an interview. “How is it that the only woman who has served in that capacity has aborted?”
The trial of Chief Pollock frames her demotion as part of a long history in the police department of excluding women from top positions. She has questioned whether women ever got a fair chance to earn those jobs.
The police department did not respond to questions about the merits of Chief Pollock’s lawsuit and why it was not promoted. A spokeswoman, Sgt. Jessica McRorie, said the department would review the lawsuit.
“The contributions of women, both in leadership roles and in their representation in uniform and civilian ranks, in the entire police department, cannot be overestimated,” added Sergeant McRorie.
Police officials denied similar allegations of gender discrimination in a lawsuit filed last year by two white, female chiefs who said they were forced to retire in 2018 to make way for younger minorities and men.
Although women make up 18 percent of the department’s 36,000 uniformed officers, a female officer has never been appointed police commissioner, head of department, chief of detectives or patrol chief in the agency’s 175-year history. (Alice McGillion, a citizen, served briefly in 1989 as the first deputy commissioner in the place.)
The handsome woman in the top echelons of the police department is not unique to New York. While women make up half of the U.S. population, they make up 12 percent of the nation’s police officers, less than 10 percent of police supervisors and about 3 percent of police officers as executives, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Women have police departments in big cities like Atlanta, Philadelphia and Washington, but agencies in cities like Chicago and Los Angeles are only run by men.
The lawsuit filed in New York City said there is evidence that gender is a factor in decisions about discretionary promotions.
Women made up 15 percent of frontline supervisors promoted based on exams, but less than 10 percent of managers promoted at the discretion of the police commissioner, according to a department report prepared in July.
Only 39 of 416 officers who captained the New York Police Department in July were women, the report said.
Five women, including Mrs. Pollock, came close to reaching the top rank, reaching the rank of three-star boss. (Only the department head, the highest-ranking uniformed officer, has four stars.) But by the end of the month, all but one of those women will be retired.
Chief Pollock said she hopes her lawsuit will force the police department to be transparent about the criteria and selection process for senior promotions.
Joanne Jaffe, who was head of community affairs before retiring in 2018, said the main reason women were not in key positions is “power and access.” She noted that there were close friendships between the police commissioner at the time, his department head and several of the commanders they were promoting.
“You need people at the top who are fair, genuine and honest, ‘she said. “And if their own clients are on top, how do you break through?”
Ms Jaffe was one of the plaintiffs in the previous lawsuit, along with Diana Pizzuti, the former chief of staff. The Police Department has characterized their claims of discrimination on the basis of age, gender and race as “baseless”, the preservation of staff changes where they were complained about on merit.
Experts who study women law enforcement say they face invisible obstacles to progress, sometimes referred to as ‘brass ceiling’, a play on the metaphor of glass ceiling that is often applied in other fields.
Those obstacles include immediate harassment on the job, but women are also struggling with a lack of opportunities for mentorship and networking, experts said. Family responsibilities also play a large role, as women are more likely to be primary caregivers and sometimes unable to meet the expectation that they are available around the clock.
“The nature of work and social problems hold women back a lot,” said Dorothy M. Schulz, a retired professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who has written extensively on the careers of women executors in law enforcement.
The re-appointment of Chief Pollock was part of a re-appointment of top commanders by Mr Shea when he took over late last year, which included the appointment of the first woman to lead the anti-terrorism division and the first African-American to led the detective agency.
Mr. Shea sought to persuade Chief Pollock that the job led by the cooperating police force, which oversees collaborations with other government agencies and with organizations on communities, was a pivotal role, in part because it would form the department’s youth programs. , said the complaint.
But the transfer deprived them of responsibilities to authority, personnel and management, and they no longer reported directly to the police commissioner, according to the complaint. Her replacement at the Office of Crime Management Strategies, considered a plumbing job, was a man, she noted.
“For me to reach where I am was climbing Everest – it took 33 years to get almost to the top of Everest to replace for no reason,” she said in an interview. ‘I did not even have a voice anymore. I’m sorry. “
