The majority of claims in a lawsuit filed by a Los Angeles police officer who alleges her high-ranking former LAPD boyfriend secretly tracked her after she ended the relationship in 2023 should be dismissed because she suffered no adverse employment actions, the City Attorney's Office maintains in new court papers.
Officer Dawn Silva's Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit alleges gender discrimination and harassment, retaliation and failure to prevent discrimination, harassment and retaliation. But in pleadings filed Friday with Judge Stephanie M. Bowick, the City Attorney's Office maintains Silva's gender discrimination and retaliation claims should be tossed out because she did not suffer a demotion or loss in pay. A hearing is scheduled June 26.
"It is entirely unclear what (Silva) alleges to be the actions defendants subjected her to that would qualify as being adverse employment actions," the City Attorney's Office contends in its court papers, which further state that there are no facts supporting her claims of "unending harassment, discrimination and retaliation" she says she suffered during a five-day period last September.
Silva joined the LAPD in 2001. In October 2017, the plaintiff and Assistant Chief Alfred Labrada started a romantic relationship while the plaintiff was assigned to the Police Training and Education Division and Labrada was a Hollenbeck Division captain, according to the suit, which further states that Silva ended the relationship last July 2023 because of its "toxic" nature.
Silva drove to Palm Springs in early September to meet four law enforcement friends and received an email from Labrada with a document attached indicating the official end of their domestic partnership, the suit states. Given the timing of the email and due to other considerations, Silva's friends believed Labrada knew she was in Palm Springs, the suit further states.
"Upon searching plaintiff's vehicle, plaintiff's friends noticed that there was a black Pelican box on the undercarriage of the passenger side of plaintiff's vehicle," according to the suit, which further states that one of Silva's friends found an AirTag in the Pelican case.
The friend later scanned the AirTag and determined that the serial number and owner information associated with the device matched the last four digits of Labrada's city-issued cell phone, prompting Silva to report the finding to Ontario police, the suit states. Fearing retaliation given Labrada's ranking, she did not inform the LAPD, according to the complaint.
Ontario police took a report from Silva, but she declined to cooperate in a possible sting call to Labrada to see if he would admit to placing the AirTag on her car, the suit states.
Members of the LAPD's Internal Affairs unit later scanned the AirTag, in which Labrada's ownership information turned out to have been removed, the suit states.
A subsequent Ontario police search warrant revealed that the AirTag was indeed registered to Labrada's city-issued cell phone and his LAPD email address, as well as the fact that Labrada had bought the black Pelican case in which the AirTag was found, according to the suit.
Rumors began spreading within the department about the Silva, the AirTag and the plaintiff's relationship with Labrada, prompting colleagues to send multiple texts inquiring whether everything they were hearing was true, the suit states.
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Silva was put on medical leave and Labrada was demoted to commander and assigned home duty as an Internal Affairs investigation began, the suit states.
In October, an Instagram with the username "defendthelapd" posted a story alluding to Silva's complaint against Labrada with the Office of Inspector General that the plaintiff made against Labrada, according to the suit, which further stated that Labrada was being made a "sacrificial lamb" and that the plaintiff was "lying and pulling a `#MeToo"' because she felt she was scorned.
Silva filed for a stay-away order against Labrada in November, according to the suit, which alleges supervisors and the command staff have nonetheless "allowed, permitted, condoned, ratified and enabled" Labrada's actions against her.
But the City Attorney's Office maintains Silva cannot credibly argue that the LAPD could stop colleagues from texting her, prevent Labrada from contacting her the department's stay-away orders or impede an unknown Instagram user from speaking about the officer.
"Assertions to the contrary would require a surveillance apparatus that would make Big Brother from "1984" envious," the City Attorney's Office further maintains in its court papers.
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