NEW ORLEANS – A former New Orleans Police Department officer, who previously earned the award of Officer of the Year, has filed a federal lawsuit against the department for alleged sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation.
Plaintiff Nneka A. Beechem, an 18-year veteran of the police department, filed her lawsuit October 2 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. The named defendants include the NOPD and the City of New Orleans.
Beechem, a black female who served the last 10 years in the NOPD’s Fourth District, claims the harassment began in September 2024 and continued through at least March or April 2025.
“Plaintiff was subjected to both a sexually hostile work environment, as well as quid pro quo sexual harassment, including severe and pervasive sexually offensive comments, as well as unwanted sexual touching by NOPD Fleet Officer Jamal Kendrick, who is over the squad car (unit) assignments,” according to her eight-page complaint.
“Plaintiff reported this unlawful, discriminatory conduct to NOPD rank and PIB, and immediately suffered reprisals and retaliation.”
Specifically, on April 4, 2025 – the very day after Beechem spoke with Investigator Randolph Daniels, she noted – she was immediately transferred out of the Fourth District, she alleges.
Also, her NOPD-issued weapon was taken away immediately, and she was no longer allowed to use, or be assigned, a squad car. She also was denied the ability to earn overtime pay, she alleges.
Beechem claims she also was falsely labeled as “disruptive” and subjected to a “bogus” fitness for duty exam.
According to her filing, she initiated her own complaints following an anonymous letter that was submitted to NOPD’s Public Integrity Bureau, or PIB, in late March 2025.
Beechem claims that during the PIB investigations, she was called a “bitter, Black female” by Daniels, a white male, and that Sergeant Lewis Faust was allegedly forced to falsify his written narrative regarding Beechem.
She is seeking compensatory, punitive, exemplary, general, legal, liquidated, equitable, and nominal damages, as well as damages for costs, expenses, and attorneys’ fees.
New Orleans firm Bagneris Pieksen & Associates LLC is representing Beechem in the action.
