Opinion ID: 855991
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Chief Hankla and dispatcher Welsh

Text: Carole Welsh was hired as the Hoonah Police Department’s dispatcher in 2006. Welsh claimed that throughout her employment before Chief Hankla’s appointment, then-patrol-officer Hankla repeatedly asked to see her breasts, and that she always refused. She claimed that these requests were only made when the two were alone, and that she never told anyone. Shortly after Chief Hankla’s appointment, Welsh’s husband accepted a job in Washington and the family relocated. On her final day of work, “as [her] shift ended,” she entered Chief Hankla’s office to have him sign her time card. Welsh claimed that during this encounter, Chief Hankla requested one final time to see her breasts. Again, Welsh refused. -3- 6765 4. Chief Hankla and dispatchers Mills and McLaughlin Karen Mills and Annette McLaughlin were dispatchers with the Hoonah Police Department while Chief Hankla was in charge. Both Mills and McLaughlin claimed they observed Chief Hankla behave inappropriately or make sexual comments. They claimed Chief Hankla reduced their hours and altered their time cards to deny them overtime pay. They also claimed Chief Hankla sent sexually inappropriate emails to members of the police department. McLaughlin claimed that while she was working, Chief Hankla once saw her accidentally open an email containing pictures of topless women. She claimed Chief Hankla told her “if [she] wanted to [she] could take some pictures of [her]self topless and send them to his email.” McLaughlin also described arriving late for a party at Chief Hankla’s house and explaining that she came directly from the shower — she claimed that he replied, “If you’re naked, come on in.” McLaughlin further claimed Chief Hankla commented on the clothes she wore to work and she was aware of crude comments Chief Hankla made to other employees. Mills described several instances that she claimed “show a pattern of sexual harassment.” Mills claimed after Chief Hankla returned to the police station following a fire call near another female dispatcher’s home, Chief Hankla told the dispatcher, in Mills’s presence, that “he had looked over to [the dispatcher’s] house, hoping to see her standing in her front window wearing something ‘small and see-through.’ ” She claimed she heard Chief Hankla joke that he was going to purchase new dispatcher uniforms from Victoria’s Secret. She also described one occasion when Chief Hankla approached her from behind to get a stapler and put his hand on her back. -4- 6765