"It is that dark": BC police officers sue over sexual harassment at work

Editor’s note: This article discusses sexual harassment and assault.

Several female police officers are taking their employers to court for harassment and bullying they allege they endured on the job.

In a class action lawsuit filed in the BC Supreme Court last week, the officers say they were subject to gender-based and sexual orientation-based discrimination that left them with serious psychological damage that’s led to treatment expenses and lost income.

“You’re pushed to a point where you’re either going to quit your job … or commit suicide,” Const. Ann-Sue Piper with the Central Saanich Police Services told Daily Hive. “I hate being that dark. But it is that dark.”

She’s been on leave for the last three years and has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

She endured routine “blowjob jokes” on the job and had fellow officers touch her buttocks without her consent, according to the statement of claim. At one point, a male officer threatened her with penetration with a service rifle. Her complaints only brought backlash.

That’s why she’s going forward with the class action suit — because she says every other avenue has been exhausted.

The suit names five other female officers in addition to Piper. It alleges the systemic discrimination they experienced has the effect of demeaning them and limiting their careers.

According to the statement of claim, one woman who’s a Vancouver Police Department officer was sent an explicit video, unrelated to any investigation, of a woman engaging in a sex act with a horse. She was also made to stock a cooler with alcoholic beverages and “wait” on other officers. When she complained about the treatment, she was told she wasn’t being a team player.

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She was also the victim of a sexual assault by another officer while working at the VPD. She reported it, and fellow officers rallied in support of the assailant but not for her. The coworker was convicted of assault in 2021, and it was revealed that he’d been credibly accused of sexual assault before.

A second VPD officer was subject to unwanted sexual comments at work, according to the court document. There was a poster hung up in August in the VPD’s forensic classroom that’s a parody of an official poster with pictures of several officers. The poster said, “swabbing penises for over 100 years.”

A third officer, with the Delta police, experienced unwanted sexual touching in the workplace, where officers also drew a penis in her police notebook, the suit says. She was often compelled to play a “would you rather” game and answer sexual questions. Her complaints were never addressed; instead, she dealt with “retaliatory abuse,” which impacted her work performance.

Over at the West Vancouver Police Department, a fourth officer alleged she experienced unwanted sexual touching and comments at work and unwanted invitations for sex with coworkers. She was also exposed to “graphic, misogynistic photographs of a woman on her period.” She made numerous complaints but was either told to drop them or to sign a document which described her complaints as “emotional.”

A fifth officer in New Westminster had male officers make unwanted comments about her “childbearing hips” and how she was a “hot mama.” Again, her complaints didn’t lead to change.

The police forces and cities named in the lawsuit include Abbotsford, Central Saanich, Delta, Esquimalt, Nelson, New Westminster, Oak Bay, Port Moody, Surrey, Vancouver, Victoria, and West Vancouver.

The suit argues the employers failed to foster a safe work environment free of harassment and discrimination.

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

Editor’s note: The names of the other women in the suit have been removed due to privacy concerns.