Crime & Safety
Chicago Cop Who Led Marine Unit Files Sex Discrimination Lawsuit
The lieutenant who became Chicago's 1st woman to command the unit is suing the city over alleged harassment by her then-supervisor.
CHICAGO, IL — The first woman to lead the Chicago Police Department's Marine and Helicopter Unit filed a sex discrimination lawsuit Thursday that accuses her supervisor of harassing her for two years. In her 19-page complaint, Lt. Alison Schloss claims she was demoted in 2016 because Deputy Chief Steve Georgas, her boss at the time, hadn't appointed her to the position nor did he want a woman in the high-profile role, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Schloss was named commander to the Marine and Helicopter Unit in 2014 by then-Supt. Garry McCarthy. Her promotion made her one of only a few women in the police force's Special Functions Division, a branch of the department that also includes the SWAT team and bomb squad and is staffed with 175 officers.
According to her lawsuit, which only lists the City of Chicago as a defendant, Georgas began allegedly harassing Schloss after she took over the role, the Tribune reports. While she was commander for two years, he is accused of overruling her decisions, assigning her busy work and denying her training opportunities were available to male colleagues, the report added.
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Schloss's complaint claims her demotion came following a case during the Memorial Day weekend in 2016, the report stated. Although Schloss had been off at the time, she helped lead the marine unit's search for a missing Lake Michigan boater who eventually drowned, the report added.
Schloss accuses Georgas of using the drowning to strip her of her command, even though an on-duty male sergeant who also worked the accident wasn't reprimanded, the report stated. She then was moved to her current post in the Major Accident Investigation Unit after she filed complaint with the legal department a week later, a transfer she calls involuntary, the report added.
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Georgas, who now works in the department's Detached Services Division, could not be reached by the Tribune, and a city representative would not comment on the lawsuit.
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