Four female Toronto police officers are planning to launch a lawsuit against the Toronto Police Service, claiming they were sexually harassed while on the job, according to their lawyer.
Howard Levitt, who said he has been retained by the female cops, spoke about the allegations and upcoming lawsuit with CP24 on Friday evening.
Levitt said the women allege they received hundreds of sexually explicit text messages from male members of the Toronto Police Service while they were on-duty.
“All kinds of sexually obscene, degrading texts and pictures being sent to them,” he said.
“I can’t describe how bad it is. If I told you how bad it was, you wouldn’t believe me. In 40 years of practice, I’ve never seen this serious series of violations of women’s rights in a workplace.”
Toronto police spokesperson Meghan Gray responded to the allegations in a statement sent to CP24 via email on Friday night.
“The Toronto Police Service takes issues of harassment and discrimination within the organization very seriously,” Gray said. “Over the last several years steps have been taken to provide members with better awareness and supervisors with better training to appropriately deal with these types of issues.”
“There is always room for improvement and the chief and command are fully committed to addressing any violations of the Human Rights Code.”
Gray added that the service “cannot speculate on a lawsuit that has yet to be filed.”
The lawsuit is expected to be filed in the beginning of next year, Levitt said.
