DENVER — Denver Police Department Sergeant Carla Havard has retired from the force after alleging race and gender discrimination as well as overt sexual harassment within the department.
Havard, a 25-year veteran of Denver PD, filed a Title VII complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in September 2022 after she faced retaliation for reporting the alleged issues, she said .
Havard said she felt retirement was her only option.
“For me, I’m filled with happiness and sadness. I know that it is time to go,” she said. “I know that I've been targeted because of my efforts to bring attention to issues that are important… we've made the truth confrontational. We've made someone else's experiences, you know, anti-unity or aggressive. With that, we've been able to drive a certain narrative and minimize other people's voices. Being Black and being a lesbian and being a woman, I'm extremely used to those, you know, those mechanisms to minimize your voice.”
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As Havard prepared to clean out her office Monday, she was accompanied by supporters.
“This is a heavy day. We are losing the highest-ranking Black woman in Denver police, and we're losing her after she became a whistleblower around sexual harassment in the department. That means we don't really have an advocate for Black women,” said Lisa Calderon, former Denver mayoral candidate. “We have not had a woman police chief, and heads of our public safety departments are all run by men. The fact that we have had an audit that said that, you know, women are being discriminated against and need more support in our police department, is an issue that this mayor really needs to take seriously. Sergeant Havard was that voice she was speaking out unapologetically.”
Regina Jackson, author and founder of Race2Dinner, was also in attendance.
“You know, the whole situation is more of the Black woman trope. We are presented as angry, unreasonable, not able to get along. And they have basically railroaded Carla because she was a whistleblower,” she said.
King said even though the department is now led by a Black man, the systemic issues are bigger than one person.
“Here's the deal. I managed a union shop for several years at the telephone company… as long as unions keep those bad policing police on their staffs, nothing will change, because the unions are holding the power right now — police unions,” King said
Havard supporter Lorriane Lightner said she knows Havard will be OK, but worries about the message her situation sends to the community.
“Who wins when the situation happens?” Lightner asked. “Who wins when there's a whistleblowing situation, and the person doing it really, actually genuinely cares for the community and for the world and is pushed out? And it's not just a Black thing. It's every color."
In a statement, the Denver Police Department said it looks forward to the findings from the EEOC investigation and will work on any issues that are founded.
Due to the pending EEOC complaint filed by former DPD Sergeant Havard, the Denver Police Department will respectfully decline commenting on her retirement. The Department looks forward to the findings from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigation so that if any aspects of her complaint are founded, the Department can work to address them.
The Denver Police Department has taken a number of strides in recent years, to improve internal and external equity practices. They include implementing many trainings and policies within the department.
Those include:
1. The creation of the DPD Diversity and Support Bureau
2. Racial and Social Justice Academy
3. A number of community academies. These involve community members sharing their perspectives and experiences with DPD. This creates a learning environment and positive interaction for officers and residents. These academies include a Spanish-speaking Community Academy, Women’s Community Academy and Youth Community Academy.
4. Creation of the Women’s Collective
5. 30 by 30 – A recruiting initiative with the goal of having at least 30% of our officers be female by the year 2030
6. Instituting respectful workplace training
7. Working with the Mayor’s Office of Social Equity and Innovation to develop an Equity Action Plan
8. When recruits graduate from the DPD Training Academy, they now must attend an 8-hour cultural awareness training
9. Creation of an Asian Community Outreach Hotline to help communicate issues within that community
10. Providing ABLE (Active Bystander for Law Enforcement)training to all officers.
11. Creating the just-launched Before the Blue and Beyond the Badge orientation program for new recruit officers with the goal of exposing the recruits to the experiences, concerns, and expectations of those whom they will serve and increasing productive connections with the community.
These are not all of the steps taken in recent years, and the listed initiatives were not taken in response to retired Sgt. Havard’s EEOC complaint, but provide an idea of the direction the department has been heading.
Havard said the untimely end to her career does not mean she’ll stop speaking up. She is moving forward with her EEOC complaint.
