Bellevue Police Officer Claims Retaliation, Sues Department

A Bellevue police officer is claiming retaliation and has filed suit against the Bellevue Police Department and her former supervisor in U.S. District Court on Friday, saying that the supervisor retaliated against her for reporting statements and text messages of a sexual nature by her training officer.

In the 10-page filing (see the item attached to this story), Officer Jan M. Auclair Trizuto says that shortly after she was hired by the Bellevue Police Department in late 2007, the officer who was assigned to train her started making statements of a graphic sexual nature during the time she was training with him.

The suit says she did not report the incidents, fearing retaliation, but about a year later, according to the suit, the same officer started sending graphic and sexual text messages.

Trizuto told a lieutenant and corporal about the messages in 2010, and the lieutenant reported the incidents to a captain, despite her objections, the suit says.

According to the suit, the Bellevue Police Department began an investigation and shortly afterward, her supervisor, who she believed was a friend of the officer who was sending the text messages, began retaliating against her by publicly berating her and threatening her with discipline after the investigation began.

According to the suit, the supervisor was reassigned after Trizuto lodged a formal complaint against him in 2010, but he still gave her a negative review, which the suit says differed from the one provided by her current supervisor.

The suit claims that the city violated Trizuto's Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection and her First Amendment right to free speech and that her supervisor unlawfully retaliated against her after she complained.

KOMO News, which first reported the lawsuit on Sunday, said that the Bellevue Police Department had no comment on the suit.