A Los Angeles Police Department captain who appears to have been maligned by Det. Frank Lyga in comments caught on tape is suing her fellow cop.

The civil suit was filed yesterday in Los Angeles Superior Court. It seeks damages, but a dollar amount wasn't attached.

See also: LAPD's Frank Lyga Calls Sergeant a “Fruit,” Captain a “Cute Little Hispanic Lady”

The suit says that 37 other cops heard comments made by Lyga as he spoke during a training class at the Los Angeles Police Academy on Nov. 15:
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During the talk Lyga “began airing old grudges,” as the suit puts it, mostly surrounding his 1997 fatal shooting of a fellow officer, Kevin Gaines, in what was described as a traffic dispute where neither man knew the other was a cop.

Lyga had been working undercover, and Gaines was off-duty. The detective was ultimately exonerated.

Here's how we framed Lyga's Police Academy remarks about Capt. Lillian L. Carranza in a previous report:

During the talk to officers at a training session Lyga spends much of the time airing old grudges, including against LAPD 77th Division Capt. Lillian L. Carranza, who was at the department's Internal Affairs Group at a time when it was trying to figure out what happened to the detective's personnel “package” following that 1997 shooting, Lyga says on tape.

On the recording he describes Carranza as a “very cute little Hispanic lady who couldn't find her ass with both of her hands.”

“I heard she been swapped around a bunch of times,” he says. A voice in the audience says, “That's her, Carranza.”

“Sixteen years ago she was really beautiful,” Lyga says. “Find her ass with both her hands – you couldn't help it because there's somebody else's hands on it.”


The suit says the remarks accuse the plaintiff, a 24-year veteran of the LAPD who commands the patrol staff at the 77th Division, of being “promiscuous” and “incompetent.”

The filing says the comments have subjected her to “shame” and “humiliation” and that they could affect her ability to command her “subordinates.”

Carranza is suing for slander, emotional distress, and invasion of privacy.

Her attorney, Felicia A. Mobley, had no comment for us. An LAPD spokeswoman said the department doesn't usually respond to active litigation.

Lyga was taken out of the field, and an investigation was launched, after the department became aware of the recording. It also has Lyga, who is white, saying that he had no regrets following his fatal shooting of a fellow officer, who was black:

I could have killed a whole truckload of them … and would have been happily doing it … 

Yesterday Lyga was assigned to home after “new information” came to the attention of LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, police told us.

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