Police officers sign up for a certain level of danger when they take the job, but that danger should never deliberately come at the hands of their own kind. Unfortunately, this is what former police officer Ashley Cummins faced while she was a member of the National City Police Department in California, just outside of San Diego.
While she now fights MMA in addition to teaching law enforcement defensive training, Cummins was with the National City Police Department for four years beginning in 2018. She reported that harassment and discrimination, from both supervisors and colleagues, escalated between March 2020 and January 2021. “Many of the male officers and supervisors indicated that if female officers wanted to fit in at NCPD, they either needed to be submissive to the male officers or sleep with them,” her suit shared, according to San Diego’s KNSD.
In that time, Cummins was not just harassed and discriminated against for being a woman on the force, but a queer woman, and was even purposely endangered in the line of duty. “Among the allegations notes a fellow officer put her life in danger by deliberately failing to search a homicide suspect for a weapon and not telling her,” KNSD reported. She was also “passed over for a position with the K-9 unit that was given to a male officer with much less experience.”
Throughout her time on the force, Cummins said in the suit, female officers were told not to mention any discrimination or harassment they had endured, lest it paint them as difficult or not a team player. As LGBTQ Nation shares, the suit mentions a male officer who once paraded discrimination accusations leveled against him and explicitly told her she’d be “just another female cop who plays [the female card] because she can’t handle National City,” that her situation would only deteriorate amongst colleagues from there.
According to a Health Services Research journal article published in 2019, “sizable fractions of women experience discrimination and harassment, including discrimination in health care (18 percent), equal pay/promotions (41 percent), and higher education (20 percent).” The experiences increase for women of marginalized identities. And while many women have successfully filed discrimination or harassment suits over the last several years, often by the thousands, there are unfortunately still so many women who are forced into staying quiet in situations beyond their control.
Cummins was not among them. Her lawsuit was filed in 2022, and just last week, justice was served: a jury ruled that Cummins should receive $10M in damages, which is comprised of “$166,000 in lost wages, $1.4 million in future economic losses, and $8.4 million for past and future non-economic losses,” as LGBTQ Nationreports. This is nearly one-third of the police department’s $33M total budget for the year. The city wasn’t happy with the decision and may even appeal despite also claiming to want a “fair and inclusive workplace for all employees,” as their attorney said.
The lawsuit led Cummins to step away from policing, according to LGBTQ Nation. Instead, she founded and is the head coach of Off the X Tactics, a tactical training program in San Diego where she teaches defensive tactics to police officers. She’s a professional boxer and MMA fighter and fights under the name “Smashley.”
You’d never have to ask her if she’s tough enough, on or off the mat.
The military used Henry Johnson for recruitment efforts.Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
Cheers to the regulars!Photo credit: @emilymichele28
Being a regular could benefit your life in several ways.Photo credit: Canva