Brookline Police Officer's Hearing To Wrap

BROOKLINE, MA — The appeal case before the Civil Service Commission of a Brookline police officer who filed a discrimination complaint against the police department claiming she is being unfairly treated is set to wrap testimony Wednesday. Chief Andrew Lipson is set to testify at the hearing.

Officer Amy Hall who worked for the Brookline Police Department since 2001 was suspended twice in less than a year. In November, she went to the town to appeal an unpaid suspension. She lost, and took her appeal to the Civil Service Commission in December. The commission hears and decide appeals filed by state and municipal employees, such as police officers, covered by the civil service law.

Hall, who said she had never been in trouble in the department before this, was disciplined in April for failing to follow a direct order and not cooperating in a department investigation. The union got involved, and Hall agreed to a 15-day unpaid suspension at the time as part of a settlement.

In May, she filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission on Discrimination in relation to the first suspension, which she said she thought was unfair to begin with. She said she didn't feel she had any other choice at the time.

Then, in August, she said she found a flyer in her mailbox at work with some areas highlighted that made her feel harassed. She took it to her supervisors and expressed concern. She said they agreed to start an internal investigation. But once the investigation was complete, she found it difficult to see how it turned out. So, she made it a daily habit to ask for a copy of the report.

On Sept. 5, she asked for permission to come into the station while she was out patrolling on her beat. She planned to check her email for news about the report and to ask supervisors for a copy of it once again.

The town's attorney described this as personal business, but Hall argues because it involved the internal investigation at work about harassment it was not.

While she was at the station, dispatch radioed her asking her to go to the front desk before she left the building to meet with a resident who had come into the station and wanted to make a suspicious incident report.

Hall acknowledged the call. She had just finished talking to a superior about getting a copy of the investigation, and he'd advised she email the person in charge of records for the report, which she was on her way to do, she said.

Some 30 minutes later, the resident who came in to make the report left.

The person at the front desk did not alert dispatch that the woman was about to leave, nor did Hall get another call asking her about it, she said. On her way out Hall said she stopped by the front desk as the dispatcher requested and asked about the resident and asked for details to follow up, but was told not to worry about it.

The department says she should have prioritized the resident or at the very least told dispatch it might take a while. The officer said if it had been urgent, the dispatcher would have directed differently.

It wasn't until a week after that Hall was called in to be questioned about what happened and asked to write a report on it.

That's when she was issued a second unpaid suspension.

The report and the suspension is something she said she has not seen happen to her male counterparts in two recent similar incidents, where officers didn't respond to dispatch calls. The department argues that's because in both of those cases the officers did not respond because of equipment or technical malfunction.

The attorney for the department said previously Hall "failed to perform her job duties" and that she was engaging in personal business on work time, and made "several untruthful statements" in an official report.

Hall's attorney argued that was overreaching.

He said Hall's mistake was saying she was on an assignment from a superior when really she was just acting on his instructions.

Wednesday witnesses will wrap up testimony in the case, including Chief Andrew Lipson and then both attorneys will have a month to write out closing statements. The civil service officer will have until the end of March to give his decision.

"I'm hoping that [the civil service commissioner] decides in my favor and I get back the 15-day suspension," said Hall. "And hopefully this will make them stop retaliating against me and discriminating against me and get me off the front desk duty."

Hall said she spoke up to her supervisors because she felt like something wrong was happening. Instead, she said, the department came after her. She said she has felt ostracized ever since.

"I hope they can just leave me alone and let me just do my job -which I had no problem with for the first 18 years," Hall told Patch. "I know there's no perfect world, but I feel like it would be nice for everyone to just respect everyone and, even if you don't like everyone, at least tolerate them and let them come in and do their job and make the town safe."

Previously:

• Brookline Police Officer Files Discrimination Complaint
• Brookline Officer Takes Appeal To Civil Service

Patch reporter Jenna Fisher can be reached at Jenna.Fisher@patch.com or by calling 617-942-0474. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@ReporterJenna).