City officials have agreed to pay $500,000 to a former Long Beach Police Department helicopter pilot who sued, alleging his coworkers and supervisors discriminated against him for several decades.
During his 30-year career working with the LBPD, Michael Colbert said he was subjected to frequent harassment, including racial slurs and jokes from his fellow officers that ranged from offhand comments about the color of his skin to overt and intentional acts of racism.
“I was ridiculed for things that I never should have been ridiculed for,” Colbert told the Long Beach Post in a 2022 interview. “And the constant demeaning, it tears you down.”
He also alleged he was wrongfully demoted, unfairly targeted for performance reviews, passed up for promotions and was usually made the scapegoat for any problems with the helicopters.
In one of many examples the lawsuit gave of how the department allegedly fostered a hostile and racist work environment, Colbert recalled hearing a new training officer in 1990 refer to a neighborhood in Central Long Beach as “Ni—rVille” before explaining it was a term only associated with people the officers deal with in certain neighborhoods.
Colbert further alleged that someone once placed a banana peel on the hood of an unmarked police car he was assigned and that his chief pilot supervisor for years displayed a hand-drawn “blackface” sketch of the Dragon Ball anime character Mr. Popo in his office cubicle.
On Tuesday, the City Council agreed during its closed session meeting to settle the case and pay out $500,000.
Colbert’s attorney, Richard Jorgensen, declined to comment on why they decided to settle the case, but Deputy City Attorney Howard Russell said the resolution was reached with the help of a professional mediator and prevented risks and additional expenses for both parties had they decided to go to trial. In addition, there is no “admission of liability” on the city’s part, Russell said.
“The City of Long Beach is built on respect, integrity, and equality,” Russell said, adding that the city actively supports the strategies adopted in the Racial Equity and Reconciliation Initiative. “We are committed to a safe, inclusive, and anti-discriminatory workplace and a community for all.”
Long Beach Chief of Police Wally Hebeish reiterated that sentiment, saying his department is “continuing to move forward, and we are committed to having a bias-free, inclusive and diverse workforce.”
But this, according to Jorgensen, is simply “smoke and mirrors,” or a “facade” to downplay a culture that has long been a part of the police department.
“A hundred percent, however you want to cut it, the Long Beach Police Department has no understanding of what boundaries they’re supposed to keep with race relations, hostile work environment, with harassment,” Jorgensen said. “It’s insane.”