Bias Against Disabled Officers Alleged in Suit : Civil rights: Policeman claims that the department has a ‘pattern, policy and practice’ of retaliating against those who fall ill and cannot perform their duties. He faces disciplinary charges.

A veteran officer filed a federal civil rights lawsuit Thursday against the Los Angeles Police Department, saying there is “a pattern, policy and practice” within the department to retaliate against individual police officers who become disabled.

In his suit, Officer Jeffrey J. Zych cited incidents in which he said police confused his illness with AIDS, falsely arrested him and wrongly committed him to a mental hospital.

“I feel disgraced to be a member of this department,” he said. “They can’t even respect the rights and problems of their own employees. So how can the public expect the police to respect theirs?”

But police administrators have noted in Internal Affairs Division reports that the 30-year-old officer has had a series of confrontations with the public, and that he once pointed a handgun at his head.

On Tuesday, the department filed disciplinary charges against Zych, a nine-year veteran, and ordered him to appear at an administrative hearing, where he could be fired.

Lt. Fred Nixon, a chief spokesman for the department, said Thursday that he could not directly comment on Zych’s performance problems. “Since these matters are being litigated, we can’t discuss it,” Nixon said.

Zych, who currently works administrative duties at the LAPD’s Harbor Division, said in an interview that his problems began in 1988 in an incident that occurred while he was off duty. Zych was arrested by Costa Mesa police after he pointed his gun at a group of men who were accosting him in a restaurant parking lot.

The charge was later dismissed, he said, although he was suspended without pay for 10 days.

Last year, Zych was diagnosed with chronic viral fatigue syndrome, a condition that includes constant drowsiness, vertigo, loss of balance, and neck and back pains, he said. He was also tested for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The test was negative, he said.

But Zych said he noted a distinct change in his supervisors’ attitudes toward him once he became sick.

“Their big question was if I was was going to spread AIDS to everybody else in the department,” he said. “And when I denied having it, they began pressuring me to prove I didn’t have AIDS.”

Last Thanksgiving, Zych said, he was involved in a confrontation at his Costa Mesa home with a court process server. Costa Mesa and Los Angeles police responded and took Zych into custody. Confused, he placed an unloaded pistol to his head.

“I broke down emotionally,” he said. “It was an act of final desperation.”

When he resisted arrest, he said, Costa Mesa police subdued him with a chokehold and he was subsequently taken to a mental hospital and placed in leather restraints.

In the following weeks, Los Angeles police took several medical records from his AIDS tests and showed them to his colleagues at work, warning officers at roll calls about his medical condition, Zych said.

Earlier this month, then-Capt. J.C. De Ladurantey wrote a memo defending Zych to the Internal Affairs Division, saying the Thanksgiving Day episode was “directly related” to his chronic fatigue.

“Zych’s current medical condition has caused him enough suffering,” De Ladurantey wrote. “To discipline him would be a disservice to Officer Zych and the department.”

But in a separate memo, Cmdr. Matthew Hunt disagreed with the reasons for Zych’s “bizarre behavior” and leveled the new administrative charges.

Zych’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in Santa Ana by attorney Patrick J. Thistle, also names as defendants the Costa Mesa police for their role in his arrests. Costa Mesa Police Capt. Tom Lazar declined to comment on the case Thursday because of the suit.