NJ Police Officers Accuse Superiors of Decades of Aggressive, Homophobic Sexual Harassment
Five police officers and one dispatcher with the Mountainside Police Department in northern New Jersey have filed a lawsuit against two of the department’s high-ranking employees for alleged homophobic bullying and sexual harassment. The New Jersey police harassment lawsuit alleges that three superiors in particular — Detective Sergeant Andrew Huber, Chief Allan Attanasio and Lieutenant Thomas Murphy — alternately pointed a laser-scoped gun at employees, placed testicles on co-workers’ food, waved a large dildo in their faces, played a homophobic “gazer” game and tried to surprise employees by jumping out nude in the station’s locker room and bathroom.
The lawsuit against the Mountainside borough — brought by officers Christopher Feighner, Richard Latargia, Thomas Norton, Jeffrey Stinnerand James Urban and part-time dispatcher Amy Colineri — was filed on May 11, 2018, but the allegations go back for almost two decades.
Here are among the most damning:
The lawsuit alleges that Huber kept a large blue dildo called “Big Blue” in his file cabinet and would brandish it at other police officers and fire officials. Attanasio allegedly egged Huber on to torment an officer with the dildo on at least one occasion.
Here’s a video of Huber taunting an officer with “Big Blue”:
The suit alleges that Huber would hide naked in the men’s bathroom and locker room and jump out to surprise people. The suit claims Huber would stand nude on a bench to put his genitals in the faces of other officers or tuck his genitals between his legs and chase others around the locker room.
The lawsuit further alleges that Murphy had “a practice of taking his flashlight and ramming it into the anus area of other male officers” on multiple occasions, even making one co-worker’s backside so sore that it hurt to sit down.
The suit claims that Murphy and Huber used to “brain” people’s food and personal items by placing their bare testicles on food, drinks and other items, taking pictures of the act and then revealing the pictures to the item’s owners once they had ingested or used the items.
The suit also claims that Murphy, Huber and Attanasio used to play a homophobic “gazer” game which involved them pointing at their crotches and yelling “gazer” to anyone who looked, implying that the looker was gay.
The allegations say Attanasio pointed his laser-scoped gun at other officers, Huber allegedly hurled feces at officers using the urinals and grabbed men’s buttocks and testicles. The lawsuit also accuses both Murphy and Huber of multiple instances of corruption and nepotism.
Finally, the lawsuit alleges that Attanasio and former police chief James Debbie were aware of various alleged misconduct but didn’t try to stop it. Borough officials say they tried to arrange meetings on February 28 with the six plaintiffs, but that none of the plaintiffs responded. The borough is currently conducting an investigation.
After the lawsuit was filed, Murphy and Huber were placed on paid administrative leave from the Mountainside Police Department.
News of the New Jersey lawsuit comes less than one week after claims of homophobic sexual harassment in a New York City fire department in which fellow firefighters allegedly called a probationary firefighter “a closet homo,” a “bitch” and a “faggot” for refusing to sleep with an erotic dancer.
