Female NYPD cops forced to pump breast milk in patrol cars and store it in maggot-infested refrigerators
At least five women police officers in the New York Police Department have filed a lawsuit, claiming they were discriminated against after they returned from their maternity leave. They have stated that the city police department forced them to pump breast milk and store it in unsanitary conditions.
The women reportedly had to breast pump in the back of patrol cars and store their milk in maggot-infested refrigerators.
The Sanders Law Firm, on Sunday, announced the names of the plaintiffs on its website: Simone Teagle, Theresa M. Mahon, Melissa Soto-Germosen, Viviana Ayende, and Elizabeth Ortiz. The law firm claimed that the department failed to accommodate nursing mothers with "reasonable" break times for the past 12 years.
Reports state that the claims made by the female cops are being sought as a class action to include other NYPD employees who also claim they have been discriminated against. The claims reportedly date back to August 15, 2017. The suit has named New York's current Mayor Bill de Blasio, former Mayor Mike Bloomberg and former Police Commissioners Ray Kelly, William Bratton and James O'Neill, as defendants. The list also includes Dermot F. Shea, the department's current top cop.
NYPD Sergeant Jessica McRorie, in a statement to New York Post, said that the department had complied with federal, state and local laws to provide reasonable accommodations to express breast milk.
The female cops, however, have said that the humiliation they suffered during this period caused them to stop breast feeding, which resulted in painful mastitis, and even resulted in a miscarriage from the stress, the outlet reported.
"Every time you say something, they make you feel like, 'Why are you doing this? You shouldn't have a kid,'" Soto-Germosen told the Post, referring to her superiors. "They made you feel bad for having a son and wanting to breastfeed him."
The women also claimed that in addition to unsanitary conditions, they were also not given enough time to breast pump and were ridiculed and retaliated against when they complained. Soto-Germosen, who has been on the for 16 years, said she returned from her maternity leave in 2017 and was forced to breast pump in an NYPD bathroom in front of other female officers. Her precinct then offered her to store her breast milk in a refrigerator inside a women's restroom that was overrun with maggots.
"I'm supposed to keep my kid's milk in a refrigerator with maggots?" she told the Post. Later, while speaking to told WABC she said she was told she was "like a cow, producing milk."