"...More Dangerous Position..."

We've seen some really dumb reasons for lawsuits before, but this one takes the cake:

• A former officer in the Chicago Police Department’s news office has filed a lawsuit alleging she was unjustly transferred out of the department after she reported that another officer yelled and swore at her during a workplace confrontation.
  
  Laura Kubiak, now a patrol officer who worked in the Office of News Affairs from 2000 to 2013, filed the suit in U.S. District Court on Tuesday against the city and two of her former supervisors.
  
  The suit alleges that another officer in the division accosted her without provocation. When Kubiak reported the alleged assault to her supervisors, the other officer was not disciplined, while she was transferred to another, more dangerous, position as a patrol officer, she claims.

Um....wasn't that what you were hired to do? The fact that you managed to land a cushy gig for half of your career instead of doing what you were hired to do in the first place strikes us as some bizarre sense of entitlement all the way around. Gathering newspaper clippings, writing press releases, and answering calls from the media seems like intern work, not a job that pays $86,000 a year.

The Department appears to be taking this tac:

• On Wednesday, city officials said they stand by their actions.
  
  "The City believes the evidence will demonstrate that the decision to return Laura Kubiak to her previous assignment was a valid personnel decision in line with CPD's efforts to civilianize the department and put more officers on the street," a spokeswoman said in a written statement.

And this is playing out as you probably expected:

• Kubiak went on leave shortly after she lost her News Affairs post, her attorney M. Megan O'Malley said. Once her leave ends, Kubiak is planning to retire because she feels the incident has damaged her career, O'Malley said.
  
  "She's not just a police officer, she's a resident of the city," O'Malley said. "As a private citizen she is concerned about this pattern of retaliation. Being a police officer doesn't give someone a free pass to violate the law. It's unfortunate that the city chose to protect the officer that assaulted her and punish the victim."

Punished? No pay was lost. No benefits were denied. You are still getting a pension (not really earned though). You get treated far worse by citizens when you work the streets.

You serve in News Affairs (and most other Units) at the whim of the Superintendent or political-powers-of-the-day. In fact, Officers give up numerous contractual protections to go there. You have no right to that spot, and certainly no expectation of keeping the spot once you get on bad paper with someone heavier than you. It's part of the game.

As for someone else being an impolite dick, that comes with working in Units that have inordinate amounts of dicks assigned there, many hidden by their own political masters. You got out-clouted, which is kind of amazing in that even after being arrested for shoplifting and brawling at funerals....well, let's just say favors dry up after a while.