Former supervisor alleges abuse and harassment in her lawsuit against city

OAKLAND >> Multiple officers in the city’s animal services department neglected or abused cats and dogs repeatedly and bullied a supervisor and others who tried to curb their behavior, a lawsuit filed against the city alleges.

In the lawsuit, a former Oakland Animal Services manager, Denise BonGiovanni, alleged that other employees harassed, discriminated against and publicly humiliated her because of her gender and sexual orientation. She also accused the city administrator’s office of not supporting her when she tried to discipline the animal control officers who were abusive to colleagues and to the animals in their care.

A spokeswoman for the city administrator’s office referred requests for comment to a representative from the city attorney’s office, who declined to comment because the office had not yet been served with the lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court last week by attorneys Angela Alioto and Jordanna Thigpen, details the struggles within the department as it was removed from the control of the Oakland Police Department and set up as its own agency.

As soon as BonGiovanni was hired in 2017 as the Animal Control and Shelter manager, she saw problems in the department, the lawsuit says. Multiple officers refused new training and continued to wear their Oakland Police uniforms, even though the agency was no longer a police division.

Even when trained on new, humane procedures, multiple officers were “sadistic” toward animals, the lawsuit alleges. One officer, Olinge Lotane-Makalani, allegedly injured a dog with a catchpole and then dragged her down a hallway to be euthanized, even though he had been trained to sedate a fearful or aggressive animal in their kennel before euthanasia, according to the lawsuit.

The same officer refused to respond promptly to a call about a dog who bit a child in an Oakland home where multiple children were present, leaving the dog in the home with the children for eight hours before Animal Services removed the animal.

And when he was assigned to rescue a litter of orphaned kittens, he refused to rescue them because they were in a crawl space and he said an earthquake may occur. BonGiovanni answered the call herself several hours later when she learned they had not been rescued, but the department’s veterinarian had to euthanize them because they had extreme hypothermia and could not survive.

Two other officers almost killed a kitten by giving it high doses of “unauthorized” controlled substances and then refused to cooperate with the veterinarian or show remorse, the lawsuit continues.

Multiple male officers working in the department refused training or discipline from women, and one training officer said that women should stay in the office and “only men” should respond to calls in the field, the suit alleges.

BonGiovanni was tasked with investigating the bad behavior and submitting reports to her supervisor, the then-director of Oakland Animal Services, Rebecca Katz. While some of the instances would be grounds for termination in any other animal services organization, Katz often attempted to suspend the officers to allow them to correct their actions. But, according to the lawsuit, Katz “did not receive support from the city’s Employee Relations department, who told her repeatedly to just accept the bad conduct, and continually pressured her to withdraw and lower any discipline she wanted to impose.”

“This contributed to the officers’ conduct that evinced their belief they were ‘untouchable’ — and further exacerbated the abuse to Ms. BonGiovanni,” the suit contends.

The harassment continued in the way officers refused to follow instructions and proper trainings, and in the how they talked about BonGiovanni.

Their refusal to do their jobs made BonGiovanni continuously anxious that the public was being harmed by aggressive animals, that animals were being abused by her staff or that animals would be left suffering as a result of officers not responding to calls, the lawsuit alleges.

The harassment apparently extended to other officers who did not fall in line with the cadre of bullies. A new female officer who complained about the hostile work environment was further harassed by the group and then told to “thicken up” when she reported it to an assistant city administrator, though the lawsuit did not indicate who said that to her.

Some officers also accused BonGiovanni of being a “man hating lesbian” and falsely accused her of favoring a female employee, prompting her to believe that much of their harassment and abuse was because she is a gay woman.

While BonGiovanni and Katz complained to the city administration, including the employee relations department and several leaders in the city administrator’s office, nothing was done, the lawsuit alleges.

According to Thigpen, who represents BonGiovanni, the city leaders have long been aware of the dysfunction in its Animal Services division, stemming from when it was a part of the police department.

“It’s especially important for our government actors to be accountable, considering that we depend on our government for life services,” Thigpen said.

In 2018, Katz had sent an email to volunteers saying, “I gave it my best for more than three years, and OAS is in a much better position than when I inherited it, but I simply cannot continue to work at an agency that does not get the resources and support from the city needed to fulfill its mission.”

At the time, she called on the city to hire for vacant positions and to properly fund the department, as well as getting the police department to “honor their obligations around animal investigations.”

While she said she would resign then, she continued in the job until February 2020, according to a press release issued then by the city.

BonGiovanni went on medical leave starting in November 2019 and late last year, the city told her it owed her “no further obligation.” Her job ended officially in December.

The lawsuit asks for “compensatory” and “emotional distress” damages, as well as the costs of the suit and injunctive relief.

One officer, Olinge LotaneMakalani, allegedly injured a dog with a catchpole and then dragged her down a hallway to be euthanized, even though he had been trained to sedate a fearful or aggressive animal in their kennel before euthanasia, according to the lawsuit.