LAPD 'SWAT mafia' trial set to begin; elite unit's leaders said to 'glamorize' killings

With a sterling record of busting down doors and arresting armed suspects over her decade in SWAT, Los Angeles police Lt. Jennifer Grasso figured she had a strong case to become the tactical unit's next leader when the position opened up this year. Grasso — the department's first woman to serve in SWAT — said she felt even more confident after getting the blessing of her retiring boss.

But instead, Grasso claims, she was passed over as "officer in charge" when her superiors learned she had agreed to help blow the whistle on what she and others saw as a deep-seated culture of violence, secrecy and cover-ups.

Grasso and several other SWAT members are set to testify in a civil trial scheduled to begin Thursday and last several weeks. The case stems from a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles alleging that the unit was run by a "SWAT Mafia" of influential veteran cops who "glamorize the use of lethal force."

Brought four years ago by Sgt. Tim Colomey, who has since left SWAT and the department, the lawsuit alleges that senior officers who controlled the tactical unit punished him and others for speaking about their behavior.

The lawsuit cites specific examples of excessive force or unjustified killings by the SWAT unit, including the 2017 shooting of an unarmed man by a sniper in a circling helicopter and the 2014 death of a mentally ill homeless man named Carlos Ocana who fell off a billboard atop a downtown building after an officer shot him with a Taser. Officers who didn't abide by a shoot-first, ask-questions-later ethos were ostracized or forced out of the unit, Colomey alleges.

The so-called SWAT Mafia members were known to bring in younger, less experienced supervisors whom they could manipulate, the lawsuit claims. The SWAT veterans used their authority to overrule commanders of other units, according to Colmey's claim, which said they also became some of the city's highest paid employees by securing themselves lucrative overtime.

Colomey spent 11 years as a SWAT supervisor until November 2019, when he left, and filed suit the following year. In 2022, former Chief Michel Moore ordered an internal review of SWAT operations after one officer was caught on video saying "happy hunting" to fellow officers before the team fatally shot a suspect downtown. The review rejected Colomey's claims of a violent internal culture and found the team used deadly force in a small fraction of incidents.

But Colomey has Grasso and others willing to testify under oath to support his claims.

According to pretrial court filings, Grasso alleges one of her bosses at SWAT, Lt. Lee McMillion, "improperly obtained" a copy of the Internal Affairs investigation into Colomey's case, which contained summaries of witness statements. What followed, she alleges, was months of retaliation by McMillion and those loyal to him.

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Grasso said McMillion openly disparaged her and others who spoke with Internal Affairs. In one instance, Grasso alleged the lieutenant referred to her as an "enemy of the platoon," a label he also applied to Colomey and others. McMillion allegedly said the unit's members had turned their Internal Affairs interviews into a "couch session" to air out their grievances. She alleged McMillion was overheard making a comment to the effect of "no straight woman can ever work in SWAT."

McMillion has denied the allegations in court filings, and he is not named as a defendant in the suit.

The city is fighting the case against Colomey, and according to court documents, it hired experts to evaluate the former sergeant to determine whether his accusations were fueled by testosterone injections he acknowledged taking or by depression brought on by the stresses of his position.

Grasso claims her top supervisor, Lt. Ruben Lopez, told her in 2022 she was in line to take over when he retired so long as she agreed to "distance [her]self from this whole Tim Colomey thing." Despite the alleged promise, Grasso later submitted a written declaration on behalf of Colomey. Lopez denied any wrongdoing in court filings and is expected to be among the first to take the witness stand in the upcoming civil trial.

After Lopez retired last year, Grasso applied for his job but not selected. While the position remained vacant earlier this year, she claims, she was summoned to a meeting with interim Chief Dominic Choi, who asked her whether she could "get along with McMillion" if she took over SWAT.

Grasso was "exasperated," according to court filings, and insisted she could work with anyone. Still, she did not get the job. She filed her own claim against the city earlier this year, alleging was been denied the promotion as retaliation for agreeing to testify on Colomey's behalf.

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Colomey's legal team may also call Jeff Wenninger, who was an Internal Affairs investigator at the time covered by Colomey's allegations. Wenninger said in a pretrial deposition that LAPD higher-ups showed more leniency in reviewing shootings and other uses of force by SWAT officers.

Wenninger's deposition also raised questions about the department's handling of a 2021 incident involving a porn actor suspected of killing a colleague with a samurai sword. The actor, Stephen Clancy Hill, died after falling some 40 feet from a rocky hillside following a standoff in which a SWAT officer fired a less-lethal round at him.

Wenninger said department leaders went out of their way to cover up for the high-profile unit's misconduct, but he believed that in recent years the Police Commission, the civilian oversight body that reviews most serious uses of force, began to take a more critical eye on SWAT shootings.

"Things are very different now. Things evolved during the period of time that I was there where the police commissioners, for all intents and purposes, provided a rubber stamp," he said in the deposition. "They really didn't have their own independent review. That changed over time."

Also expected to testify is Colomey's brother, Sean, who was also a supervisor with SWAT and said he repeatedly heard some unit members refer to themselves as a "mafia."

In sworn pretrial testimony, both Colomey brothers identified several lower-ranking officers as being members of the SWAT Mafia, with several unit supervisors and police commanders such as McMillion and Lopez allegedly enabling the group's hold on power.

In previous filings submitted in the case, Lopez denied that the unit had a culture of violence. He said that SWAT was largely overhauled after a 2008 board of inquiry ordered by then-Chief William J. "Bill" Bratton produced an explosive report that was highly critical of the unit's operations. This ushered in a wave of reforms, including the expansion of the officer candidate pool, which had previously been limited to members of the Metropolitan Division.

The changes also led to the recruitment of outside supervisors, like Colomey, who hadn't previously worked in SWAT, and revised the selection criteria, from focusing heavily on physical prowess to placing more weight on problem-solving skills.

For years, Colomey was a regular fixture as a negotiator at SWAT scenes, where he would often be found on the bullhorn trying to talk down suspects who were holed up inside buildings.

About a year before first came forward with his SWAT accusations, Colomey was featured in a department podcast, "Born in Boston: A SWAT Story." In the episode, he detailed his rise to be a unit leader, after surviving a near-fatal injury when he was hit by a car during a foot pursuit of an armed suspect. His partner at the time was Choi, who was replaced as chief last week by Jim McDonnell.

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