Academic

?Pink Panties? Not Funny To Homicide Investigator

By Ann Bartow

From here:

… Last year, Action News Five took you inside “The First 48″. We showed Mason and others at work. Now, we’ve uncovered more drama behind the scenes at Memphis Homicide. It’s where Mason has apparently taken fellow detectives to task over a pair of pink panties.

A source inside homicide says the panties were routinely given to the person believed to have the easiest case of the day.

We’re told Mason filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. No one there is allowed to talk about an open case. But Memphis city attorney Elbert Jefferson confirms a complaint was filed.

“All employees have a right to file a complaint,” says Memphis councilman Harold Collins.

Collins sits on the committee which oversees MPD.

“Whether it be sexually offensive or racially offensive, that’s why these mechanisms are in place,” says Collins.

The panties may have been a way for those who deal with death all day to blow off steam. But Collins says the motive doesn’t matter.

“Everyone has a right to be in a place where they work and feel safe and feel like the things going on are appropriate,” says Collins.

He says 201 Poplar is no exception. …

I don’t use the term “panties,” not seeing the need for a special feminized, dimunitive word for underwear that women wear. Of course it wasn’t enough for the bad actors above to use women’s underwear as a way to embarass colleagues, it had to be pink underwear to boot, just to make sure the insult was extra powerful.

–Ann Bartow, via a friend who possible goes commando, who knows.

Full post as published by Feminist Law Professors on August 29, 2008 (boomark / email).