LMPD officer’s lawsuit alleges she was sexually harassed by two superiors

For the second time in less than a week, an LMPD officer is making sexual harassment allegations against the department. Louisville Metro Police Department Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel was suspended last week for allegedly mishandling a police major’s sexual harassment complaint. On Tuesday, another officer filed a sexual harassment complaint in Jefferson County Circuit Court. In less than a year on the job, Louisville Metro Police Department Officer Christine Silk claims she was sexually harassed by two male supervisors. “This department is great,” Silk said during an interview with WLKY News in 2022. At the time, she was a recruit training to become an LMPD officer. On Tuesday, Silk filed a civil lawsuit against LMPD. In the complaint, the officer alleges she was sexually harassed by two male supervisors. Silk claims in the lawsuit that her instructor at the academy, Dale Cottongim, made numerous inappropriate comments. In one instance, Silk says, Cottongim told her to “prostitute herself for child care.” He then explained — and this statement was repeated multiple times — that she would “pick up a guy, date him, bring him home, sleep with him, and then do child care,” said Silk’s attorney, Sara Collins, who says Silk reported the instructor’s actions to her superiors. According to Mayor Craig Greenberg’s office, Cottongim received a reprimand and was transferred out of the training unit. Silk was sworn in as an LMPD officer on Sept. 8, 2023, and was assigned a field training officer named Justin LeMon. “He kept making advances to her and made it very clear to her from the beginning that I’m not interested in a romantic or sexual relationship with you. I just want a professional relationship with you,” Collins said. But according to the lawsuit, LeMon was persistent. One day, during training, Silk got hot and sweaty and she took off her bulletproof vest. “When she took off her vest,he said, ‘I didn’t know you had abs.’ And he started pulling up her shirt and brushed the lower part of her breast and she had to slap his hand away,” Collins said. Officer Silk also claims Officer LeMon sent her two inappropriate pictures. The photos are included in Silk’s lawsuit. “It is certainly a very direct and blatant act of sexual harassment to send an unsolicited and clearly unwanted sexually explicit picture of one’s genitalia,” Collins said. According to the mayor’s office, Officer LeMon is still under investigation and has been transferred and relieved of his police duties. “Officers don’t get fired for sexual harassment, at most they get suspended. They get a slap on the wrist. So you can go on all day claiming you don’t tolerate sexual harassment when in reality you do,” Collins said. In her lawsuit, Silk claims she suffered emotional stress, physical pain and mental anguish. She is seeking compensatory and punitive damages. The LMPD responded to the lawsuit against the department by saying, in part, “The LMPD will not tolerate sexual misconduct within this agency as this behavior is contrary to our mission to provide a safe work environment for all sworn and professional employees. We take all allegations of this nature seriously and immediately initiate internal investigations once they are brought to our attention.” The statement goes on to say that none of the officers named in Silk’s civil lawsuit are assigned to her department or unit. When WLKY News reached out to Cottongim for comment, he said he could not comment due to “pending litigation.” Officer LeMon did not respond.