Tawnie Hansen, the former Eureka Police Department dispatcher who found herself at the center of a fight between supporters and detractors of Chief Garr Nielsen, has filed a huge lawsuit against the City of Eureka and City Manager David Tyson.
Hansen, who is asking for $1.4 million plus punitive damages, alleges that the city slow-played an investigation into who was behind a blog called Above the Law, which was written from an anti-Nielsen point of view and hinted that Nielsen and Hansen, both married, had been having an affair. Former EPD dispatch chief DeeDee Wilson previously settled a Hansen lawsuit that accused Wilson of running the blog.
The new lawsuit against Tyson and the city alleges that the city manager intentionally broadened and stalled an investigation into the blog and purported harassment targeting Hansen, and that his motivation for doing so was psychosexual in nature. Download a copy of the suit at this link (350K, .pdf).
The suit is saucy in the extreme. Key passage here:
…
(b) Tyson had a personal friendship and aligned himself with Wilson, a member of the anti-Chief Nielsen group who Tyson was aware had publicly criticized Chief Nielsen at a City Council meeting and who he also knew was an adversary to Hansen;
(c) at the same time, Tyson, who spoke openly to Hansen of his potential sexual encounter with an elected Eureka official, had previously flirted with Hansen in public — including touching her in a suggestive manner — and intimated to her that he would be desirous of her performing a specific sexual act with him;
(d) Hansen rejected Tyson’s sexually aggressive overtures and never did or said anything to convey to Tyson that she was open to them;
(e) Tyson, having been rebuffed by Hansen in this regard, was both angry with Hansen and jealous of Chief Nielsen when he learned of the above-described defamatory statements regarding Hansen’s purported affair with Chief Nielsen, which statements Tyson apparently believe were true; and
(f) given these misplaced beliefs and his alignment with Wilson, Tyson had no desire to take any steps to have the defamatory publications stop or to bring to end the harrassing conduct to which Hansen was being subjected.
See the “Broken Blue Line,” the Journal‘s July 2 cover story, for some background this matter and the EPD rift in general.
This article appears in A Small-Town Affair.
Wow. Is he writing a steamy novel? Or is this a lawsuit? Are these allegations or facts? It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out. The timing dovetailing with heraldo’s blog release, and the obvious positioning against Tyson that has been going on there… looks like more scorched-earth politics and settling a political vendetta…
Two things jump out at me, from your account here and the TS account… one is she is alleging that broadening the scope of investigation was a delaying tactic, when it would seem to be being thorough in a delicate matter. Broadening the investigation certainly doesn’t amount to disrespecting her complaint or attempting to sweep it under the rug.
And two… whether he wanted to or not, he could not do much, if anything, about a blog that may or may not have been posted by a city employee on their own time – that is a matter of free speech and not something he can just command to stop in any circumstances.
Union rules and laws would also apply in almost all aspects of looking into this case, not a simple thing in any way shape or form.
Something doesn’t smell right. Jus’ sayin’.
"…she is alleging that broadening the scope of investigation was a delaying tactic, when it would seem to be being thorough in a delicate matter."
Odd, but this morning’s paper featured Randy Gans from Security National with almost the exact same comment, except he was writing about Humboldt Baykeeper’s concerns for pollution on Eureka’s Balloon Tract.