A transgender woman in Southern California says a police officer forced her to perform oral sex on him and then raped her.
The woman made the allegations in an Oct. 18 federal civil rights and assault lawsuit against the unnamed El Monte police officer and the El Monte Police Department, the Los Angeles Times reports.
The woman, who used the pseudonym “Jane Roe” in court documents, said that between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. on Oct. 23, 2012, when she was walking to her friend’s house, she was stopped by the officer and ordered to lean into his patrol cruiser.
“Because she feared for her safety if she refused, (she) leaned forward and (the officer) groped her breasts,” the suit says, NBC reports. “He then asked (her) if she was ‘a nasty she-male.’ (She) responded that she was transsexual.”
The officer, according to the complaint, ordered her into an alley and eventually a poorly lit parking lot near a loading dock, the Times reports.
Once there, the officer ordered her to perform oral sex, and she complied “out of fear for her physical safety,” according to the complaint. Then, allegedly, he raped her.
The officer tossed the condom he used onto the ground, which the woman later retrieved and turned in to the police, LAist reports. Detectives are awaiting DNA test results from the condom and other evidence.
The El Monte Police Department released the following statement about the suit:
These allegations are very disturbing and clearly not representative of the expectations we have for the men and women who serve the El Monte Police Department. We take any allegation against our Police Department tor individual police officers very seriously because we hold our officers to the highest standard.
The officer has been placed on leave but not arrested as the department conducts an internal investigation, Gay Star News reports.
The victim is seeking unspecified damages from El Monte Police Department.
