Ex-Boise police officer alleged sexual discrimination. City is paying $400K to settle
The city of Boise has settled a sex discrimination lawsuit with a former Boise Police Department officer, and will pay her $400,000 to resolve the case.
Sierrna Berg’s suit related to a March 2019 incident in which she witnessed a fellow trainee allegedly being put in a choke hold, according to a legal complaint. After the incident, Berg and other trainees reported it. In her complaint, filed in April 2020, Berg alleged her superiors subjected her to a pattern of retaliation and sex discrimination, which culminated in her termination in November 2019.
In its response to the complaint, Boise Police denied many of Berg’s claims, noting that she was not subject to “an adverse employment action” and that any adverse action occurred for “legitimate non-retaliatory reasons.”
Three other officers also accused the department of wrongful termination and harassment in connection with the 2019 incident.
In the settlement, entered by a U.S. Magistrate Judge on Thursday, Boise Police agreed to pay $100,000 in lost wages and back pay and $300,000 in non-economic damages. In its offer, the police department said the settlement should not be construed as an admission of liability.
News of the settlement was first reported by the Associated Press.
During training in March 2019, Berg said she witnessed an “illegal battery” when a training officer put a trainee into a choke hold after a disagreement, the complaint alleges.
Berg filed a complaint against the officer afterward with her supervisor, who did not report the incident to Internal Affairs, the legal complaint states. The entire class of trainees was disciplined after the incident, and were assigned push-ups, the complaint said.
In the months that followed, others in the department began disparaging Berg in a sexist manner, the complaint said, including by spreading rumors that she was having an extra-marital affair with another classmate.
Berg passed her Peace Officer Standards and Training certification in May 2019, and became a full-time law enforcement officer.
While engaged in further training with Boise Police, supervisors confronted her about the rumors of a relationship with another officer, and did not appear to believe her when she defended herself, the complaint said. Berg also said she was held to different standards than her male counterparts, was criticized for the pitch of her voice and was deliberately scheduled to work back-to-back shifts.
The complaint also said superiors may have fabricated reasons for giving her low scores during training.
Shortly after filing a complaint with a captain, Berg was informed by supervisors that she was failing her training program, the complaint said.
After her request to be transferred to a different training sergeant was granted, another training classmate of Berg’s filed a tort claim against the department in November 2019 for the March choke hold incident. Rumors circulated that Berg’s cooperation in the tort claim proceedings meant she was herself contemplating a legal complaint against the department, and her new supervisor’s demeanor toward her changed “dramatically,” the complaint said, and he also began to disparage and harass her.
When Berg asked to again be transferred to another training officer, she was placed on administrative leave, and she was terminated later that month, the complaint said.
A spokesperson for Boise Police did not immediately respond to a Saturday request for comment.
