Opinion ID: 197155
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Rio Grande Precinct

Text: 73 In reviewing whether the failure to enforce Law 54 was motivated by discriminatory intent, we look first to the actions of the officers in the Rio Grande precinct. The key actor at the precinct level was Sergeant Orta. Orta was told Soto was making a Law 54 complaint, yet he signed an Other Services Report in violation of Law 54 and took no steps to have Rodriguez arrested. Nor did he take any steps to remove Soto and her children from harm's way. He knew that Flores was going to talk to Rodriguez and did not try to stop him. He thus ratified and condoned the officers' disregard of Law 54. 74 Orta's statements, as described below, suggest a discriminatory attitude towards women; this attitude may have been one of the reasons behind the lack of enforcement of Law 54 at the Palmer substation of the Rio Grande precinct. Sergeant Orta made statements which a trier of fact could easily find reveal gender-discriminatory stereotypes and biases. He testified as follows: 75 Q: What is your opinion of Act 54? 76 A: I told you the first time, and I remit myself to the record, that I am in total disagreement with that Act. I believe that it is very unjust related to aggressions against women and I do not agree with that. 77 Q: Why do you believe it is very unjust with relation to aggressions against women? 78 A: Sometimes men, including myself of course, but sometimes one drinks on the outside or has a woman on the side or a friend on the side, and one has an argument with one's lady friend and goes home and takes it out on the wife. And I believe that is not just. 79 . . . . . 80 Q: Then I ask you, again, what is your opinion with relation to the law? 81 A: Well, the thing is that the law, in spite of it mentioning both parties as being able to complain, the woman is always the person who is injured. Credibility is given to the woman, where there are occasions when that doesn't happen that way. 82 The weight to be given to Sergeant Orta's comments depends upon many factors. See National Amusements, 43 F.3d at 743 (ambiguous comments standing alone are insufficient to raise an inference of racial animus). The defendants here have not offered a plausible alternative interpretation for comments which in context suggest discrimination. See Alexis v. McDonald's Restaurants, Inc., 67 F.3d 341, 348 (1st Cir.1995) ([A] rational factfinder would be hard-pressed to glean a more plausible inference [than discriminatory intent], particularly since [defendant] has tendered no alternative interpretation supported by the present record.). The comments were made by a person whose actions allegedly contributed to the plaintiff's injury. 83 Sergeant Orta's statements are very troubling. His hostility to enforcing the domestic violence law could certainly be understood as arising from archaic stereotypes which assume that men enjoy certain prerogatives towards women, including beating them. 13 Gender-based classifications may not be used, as they once were, to create or perpetuate the legal, social, and economic inferiority of women. United States v. Virginia, --- U.S. at ----, 116 S.Ct. at 2275 (citation omitted). Although Sergeant Orta is not a defendant here, he was a supervisor and his attitudes are evidence of whether the failure to enforce Law 54 at the precinct level was based on discrimination. 84 Law 54 was enforced sporadically, at best, in the precinct in 1991. Officer Flores testified that almost everyone in his police detachment shied away from Law 54 complaints. Asked what happened to the victims when the officers did not want to take complaints, Flores responded, Well, they had to continue complaining. Flores testified that proper Law 54 procedures were followed only about 75% of the time, and then just by certain officers. Sergeant Orta, Flores's direct supervisor, stated that, despite Law 54, domestic violence complaints were not given great importance in 1991 and were commonly handled in the station as Other Services reports. There would certainly be enough facts to raise a reasonable inference that the failure to enforce Law 54 at the precinct level was based on gender discrimination. 85 That, however, does not answer the question as to whether Officer Flores, who is the defendant here, acted out of gender-based discriminatory intent in talking to Rodriguez. It was not within Flores's responsibilities to take Soto's complaint or to arrest Rodriguez. We find no evidence to suggest that Flores's motivation in talking to Rodriguez was based on gender discrimination. There is no evidence that Flores himself attempted to avoid enforcement of Law 54 at all, much less for discriminatory reasons. Flores, despite the lack of official training, undertook to get some training for himself. When Soto came to the Palmer substation, Flores called in the two patrol officers, whose responsibility it was to take the complaint and act on it. Flores described Soto's complaint as a Law 54 complaint to the patrol officers, as he did to Sergeant Orta. There is no evidence that Flores intervened and talked to Rodriguez because of a gender-discriminatory motive; rather, the relationship between the two men provides a strong inference that Flores believed his friendship could provide a basis to resolve the matter. Sadly, he was wrong. That he was wrong does not turn his action into one motivated by gender discrimination.