Global Courant 2023-04-19 08:04:59
An LAPD officer, whose social media posts featuring snipers drew a lot of attention after she was involved in a deadly shooting, filed a discrimination and retaliation lawsuit against Police Chief Michel Moore and the department on Tuesday.
LAPD officer Toni McBride alleges that Moore blocked her promotions because she refused to remove videos of her at shooting competitions or shooting training at shooting ranges from her social media feeds. In the lawsuit filed in federal court, McBride claims Moore told her to delete her social media accounts or else he would destroy her career.
McBride, who is seeking more than $5 million in damages, has been on medical leave since November due to “severe physical symptoms caused by and aggravated by the stress,” the lawsuit said.
An LAPD spokesperson declined to comment, citing pending lawsuits.
McBride’s social media posts attracted attention in 2020 after she shot six times a 38-year-old man who was holding a box cutter, killing him. McBride and her partner had been responding to a collision on San Pedro Street near East 32nd Street that involved several seriously injured motorists whose vehicles had been hit by a truck driven by Daniel Hernandez. A toxicology report revealed that Hernandez had methamphetamine in his system at the time.
McBride repeatedly ordered Hernandez to drop the gun, according to videos captured by McBride’s body camera and by witnesses with smartphones. When Hernandez came over to her, she shot him twice and then fired two more shots when he tried to get up. Her last two shots came as he rolled on the floor.
After the shooting, McBride told investigators she felt Hernandez posed a risk to bystanders in the area.
The Los Angeles Police Commission found that McBride had violated department policy by continuing to shoot Hernandez during the fatal encounter. The commission found McBride’s first four shots to be warranted, but her fifth and sixth shots were not.
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office has cleared McBride of wrongdoing, based in part on the “expert opinion” of a controversial consultant on police use of force. Bonta’s office took over the shooting review after former Los Angeles County Dist. Attention. Jackie Lacey backed off.
McBride’s father, Jamie McBride, is one of nine directors of the powerful Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union that represents rank and file officers on labor and discipline issues. The LA Police Union has been raising money for Lacey’s campaigns.
The younger McBride earned “Top Shot” at the LAPD police academy and, according to her lawsuit, was the youngest in her class when she graduated at age 20. She said in the lawsuit that she has competed in — and won — shooting competitions around the country, which she regularly chronicled on her social media accounts.
In the lawsuit, McBride’s attorney said it wasn’t the Hernandez shooting that caused the police chief to block McBride’s career prospects last year.
“Chief Moore told Officer McBride he wanted her to stop posting videos on social media,” the lawsuit said. “He said Officer McBride had to ‘choose between being an LAPD officer’ or posting videos on social media.”
McBride claims her posts are “virtually identical to dozens of videos regularly posted by male officers. But when it comes to Officer McBride, Chief Moore told her he didn’t like the ‘image they present,'” the lawsuit said.
