Lincoln Police officer fired in February sues the city alleging discrimination

Sara Khalil had dreamt of being an American police officer since her childhood in Pakistan, where her family lived after fleeing their home in northern Iraq.

She came to Nebraska with her family when she was 12, and realized that dream nine years ago. But it didn't turn out as she'd imagined and this week Khalil joined a small group of current and former officers suing the city alleging discrimination.

Khalil, who was fired in February, filed a lawsuit this week alleging discrimination based on her sex, color and national origin, as well as a disability she sustained on the job at the Lincoln Police Department.

Police Chief Teresa Ewins declined to comment specifically, saying the city hadn't yet been served with the lawsuit, but maintained her termination was lawful. Khalil has appealed her termination "and evidence supporting her termination will be brought forward at that time," Ewins said.

Reached earlier Wednesday, City Attorney Yohance Christie said: "We support an individual's right to seek redress through the court process. While we certainly have a different view regarding what happened, we also owe an obligation to our employees to keep their personal information confidential. Thus, I will not be discussing any details about the specific allegations, and we must rely on the legal process."

Khalil's lawsuit follows suits filed by officers Melissa Ripley and Sarah Williams and Sgt. Erin Spilker in the past 18 months alleging a toxic workplace culture against women. More are expected.

Before joining LPD, Khalil worked briefly at Lincoln Fire and Rescue, where her treatment as a trainee became the subject of a federal lawsuit filed by a former fire captain who said he faced retaliation after reporting discrimination he’d seen happening to her.

She ultimately was fired for not passing the training requirements.

Khalil didn't file a lawsuit against the city then, but did testify at former Fire Capt. Troy Hurd's 2019 trial, which resulted in a $1.17 million jury verdict against the city.

In an interview with the Journal Star last month, Khalil said she chose not to sue over her experience at the fire department because she wanted to be a police officer.

“I did not want to sue the city that I was going to work for,” she said then.

That would change in the coming years.

She decided to speak publicly after being accused of providing false information in claims for worker's compensation and other benefits and fired as an officer in February.

She was the subject first of an investigation by the city's risk management team, then an internal affairs investigation.

In an interview with the Journal Star, Khalil denied the fraud accusations and public statements made by Ewins after her firing.

"I want them to quit accusing me of fraud," she said.

Ewins has said a video showed Khalil, who also is a Jiu-Jitsu instructor, participating in martial arts activities "that far exceeded the limitations she reported" while on leave for a knee injury and that she had provided false information to receive financial compensation.

Doing so violated not only city policy, but also state law, the chief alleged. Khalil hasn't been charged with a crime.

Khalil injured her knee on the job in 2017. After the injury she initially went back to work but later saw a specialist, and three knee surgeries followed in 2018 and 2019. She had to take several leaves of absence and take light duty assignments.

Last fall, Khalil said she went on medical leave because of continued pain from the 2017 injury. 

She returned to light duty in November, the same month the city's risk management division had an investigator follow her, according to the lawsuit.

Khalil told the Journal Star she's done martial arts since she was 6 years old and Jiu-Jitsu for the past 13 years. She was under a lot of stress and was depressed because of her job situation, she said, and a psychologist recommended she get out of the house and be around people she trusts.

Khalil said the work she did as an instructor didn't exceed what her doctor allowed, nor was it the same kind of activity required by police work. She wasn't lifting any weight, shifted weight to her good knee and was showing techniques to students that didn't involve force or resistance, she said.

The city accused her of a "takedown," she said, but what they saw was her joking around with someone, not performing a move.

In December, Khalil applied for disability pension related to her knee injury.

In February, she was notified of a personnel hearing about her alleged dishonesty regarding her worker's compensation claim.

At the hearing Feb. 24, Ewins repeatedly called her a liar, according to the lawsuit. She was suspended, then terminated a day later.

Khalil told the Journal Star she believes the worker's compensation issue was an excuse to fire her.

"I think that they were after me from the first day they hired me," she said. "They wanted me out. They didn't have anything to kick me out. And this was their excuse to fire me. But the racism had been going on, this harassment. This retaliation has been going on. I just did not want to accept it. Or resign. I didn't want to believe it."

In the lawsuit filed this week, attorney Kelly Brandon said Khalil faced retaliation after reporting an excessive force incident early in her career at LPD, and again after she testified at Hurd's trial.

She said that Tonya Peters, a city attorney assigned to handle LPD matters, sat through her testimony and asked her to lunch. When Khalil asked why she was there, Peters allegedly told her: "I am here because your job kind of depends on this."

Brandon said in 2014, not long after Khalil had started at LPD, she reported an excessive force incident involving an officer pushing a suspect's head against a wall and going forward experienced "many negative, discriminatory incidents with fellow officers."

Khalil heard that one officer told others, "I hope she doesn't need a backup on call." She took it to mean if she called for help over the radio, he wouldn't respond. 

When a fellow officer went to then-Chief Jim Peschong and her captain about her being ostracized by other officers, nothing was done and Khalil started getting written up for anything they could find wrong with her work, according to the lawsuit.

In one incident, Khalil was reprimanded for helping a Sudanese family by paying a tow fee.

Brandon listed numerous incidents in the lawsuit where Khalil alleges she was treated differently from other officers and was passed over for positions — including the SWAT Team, to be a motorcycle officer, as a field training officer, and for an investigative position. When Khalil didn't get a position, she'd ask how to improve and just kept trying.

"My response was, well, maybe somebody is better than me. Maybe I didn't meet the qualifications. Maybe I need more experience," she said.

Khalil now thinks they didn't want her there.

"So it didn't matter what I did. It was just a false hope and a false belief," she said.

Officer Sarah Williams, the first to sue the city alleging a toxic workplace for women in December 2020, left LPD for a job with the Omaha Police Department.

Since then, LPD has fired Sgt. Angela Sands, Officer Laura Oliphant and Officer Luke Bonkiewicz. Officer Erin Spilker resigned.

Officer Melissa Ripley, who filed suit in April 2021, remains the only one who sued to continue working at LPD.

In April, the city announced an independent assessment of the department has begun to give all employees an opportunity to complete an anonymous survey about their experiences and perspectives on operations.

Khalil said she wants things to change, that speaking up when something is wrong should be seen as a chance to improve the situation.

"I want them to change the environment," she said. "At some point it has to stop. They cannot keep retaliating against people who speak up."

The Journal Star's Andrew Wegley contributed to this report.