A Black former helicopter pilot with the Long Beach Police Department has been awarded $500,000 to settle a lawsuit after he accused his coworkers and supervisors of decades of racial discrimination.
Michael Colbert, who flew choppers for the LBPD for 30 years, said he regularly experienced racism from colleagues, including epithets and Black jokes, ranging from casual remarks about his skin color to unmistakable instances of racism.
“I was ridiculed for things that I never should have been ridiculed for,” Colbert told the Long Beach Post in late 2021 when he filed the action. “And the constant demeaning, it tears you down.”
Colbert’s lawsuit claimed he was targeted in performance reviews, unfairly demoted, and often blamed for maintenance issues with the helicopters.
The lawsuit cited evidence of a hostile and racist work environment, with Colbert recounting a specific incident from 1990 in which a new training officer referred to a neighborhood in Central Long Beach as “Ni—rVille.”
Colbert also claimed that on one occasion, someone placed a banana peel on the hood of his unmarked police car, and that his supervisor kept a hand-drawn “blackface” sketch of the Dragon Ball anime character Mr. Popo displayed in his office cubicle for years.
During a closed-door meeting on March 12, the Long Beach City Council voted to pay Colbert half a million dollars in exchange for dropping the lawsuit.
Colbert’s lawyer, Richard Jorgensen, said it was a smart move for the city to settle the case as he blasted the department’s racial mitigation efforts as “smoke and mirrors,” suggesting the culture of racial bigotry in the department was too pervasive to change overnight.
“A hundred percent, however you want to cut it, the Long Beach Police Department has no understanding of what boundaries they’re supposed to keep with race relations, hostile work environment, with harassment,” Jorgensen said. “It’s insane.”
Deputy City Attorney Howard Russell said a professional mediator helped both sides reach the deal, which avoided a potentially costly trial.
As part of the settlement, the city of Long Beach was not required to admit to any wrongdoing.
“The City of Long Beach is built on respect, integrity, and equality,” Russell said, while noting that the city had implemented strategies aimed at Racial Equity and Inclusion. “We are committed to a safe, inclusive, and anti-discriminatory workplace and a community for all.”
Initially, the city filed a response to the lawsuit, denying the allegations and claiming that Colbert had exceeded the statute of limitations because the alleged incidents took place many years ago.
During a press conference, Long Beach Police Chief Wally Hebeish emphasized the department’s commitment to progress, saying he is dedicated to maintaining a diverse and inclusive workforce.
For Colbert, becoming a police helicopter pilot was a lifelong dream come true, but he soon found himself living a nightmare amid day-to-day racial hostilities.
After serving as a teen Police Explorer in Huntington Beach, Colbert joined the Long Beach Police Department in 1989 and became the first and only Black helicopter pilot in the unit’s 53-year history.
He retired in October 2019 and began to reflect on the racist encounters he experienced throughout his career, which began to keep him up at night.
Feeling wronged, Colbert filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court on Dec. 28, 2021, claiming Black police officers were kept from obtaining management positions and that incidents of racial harassment were never investigated nor addressed.
