A lawsuit filed by a Los Angeles police officer who alleges her high-ranking former LAPD boyfriend secretly tracked her after she ended the relationship in 2023 should be dismissed, the City Attorney's Office argues in new court papers.
Officer Dawn Silva's Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit alleges gender discrimination and harassment, retaliation and failure to prevent discrimination, harassment and retaliation. But in pleadings filed July 3 with Judge Stephanie M. Bowick, the City Attorney's Office cites multiple defenses, including violation of the statute of limitations and that the plaintiff did not explore all her internal department remedies before suing.
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In addition, the city is immune from liability and the department had "a legitimate business reason for its conduct" regarding Silva, who "consented to and approved of all the acts and omissions about which plaintiff now complains," according to the City Attorney's Office's pleadings.
The city's filing, a formal 10-page answer to Silva's complaint, asks that the officer's motion be dismissed without allowance for refiling, along with a granting of attorneys' fees. The court papers were brought a week after Bowick denied a motion by the City Attorney's Office to eliminate most of Silva's causes of action.
Silva joined the LAPD in 2001. In October 2017, the plaintiff and Labrada started a romantic relationship while the plaintiff was assigned to the Police Training and Education Division and Labrada was a Hollenbeck Division captain, according to the suit, which further states that Silva ended the relationship in July 2023 because of its "toxic" nature.
Silva drove to Palm Springs in early September to meet four law enforcement friends and received an email from Labrada with a document attached indicating the official end of their domestic partnership, the suit states. Given the timing of the email and due to other considerations, Silva's friends believed Labrada knew she was in Palm Springs, the suit further states.
"Upon searching plaintiff's vehicle, plaintiff's friends noticed that there was a black Pelican box on the undercarriage of the passenger side of plaintiff's vehicle," according to the suit, which further states that one of Silva's friends found an AirTag in the Pelican case.
The friend later scanned the AirTag and determined that the serial number and owner information associated with the device matched the last four digits of Labrada's city-issued cell phone, prompting Silva to report the finding to Ontario police, the suit states. Fearing retaliation given Labrada's ranking, she did not inform the LAPD, according to the complaint brought Feb. 9.
Ontario police took a report from Silva, but she declined to cooperate in a possible sting call to Labrada to see if he would admit to placing the AirTag on her car, the suit states.
Members of the LAPD's Internal Affairs unit later scanned the AirTag, in which Labrada's ownership information turned out to have been removed, the suit states.
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