Ex-Boss Demanded Sex, D.C. Parks and Recreation Workers Say

Garrina Byrd confers with one of her attorneys, Peter Mina, at a D.C. Council session last month. (By Lois Raimondo -- The Washington Post)

The former chief of facility maintenance at the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation allegedly kissed, fondled and demanded sexual favors from three women under his supervision, according to the women, who say the alleged harassment continued even after they told several supervisors at the agency.

The women are single mothers who were hired initially for maintenance jobs at $6.15 an hour under the District's welfare-to-work program. One former employee said she complained in person more than three years ago to Neil O. Albert, a former deputy mayor who was then the department's director.

The maintenance chief, Darnell Thompson Sr., 50, left his $66,000 position at the agency last summer after a current employee, Garrina Byrd, 28, filed a sexual harassment complaint against him with the city's Office of Human Rights.

"The Chief would grab my breasts or my behind and, if I had on a skirt, he would try to put his hand up my skirt," Byrd alleges in her complaint, filed in April. "I began to consent to the Chief's requests for sex because I was afraid that I would lose my employment."

Byrd, who was hired in 2001 and said Thompson's sexual harassment began in 2002, repeated her allegation last month at a D.C. Council committee's oversight hearing on the recreation department.

"Each time, he threatened to fire me if I didn't agree to his demands," Byrd testified. She told the panel that young women struggling to improve their lives should not be "forced to choose between their dignity and the need to make a living."

The District government has a "zero tolerance" policy that prohibits sexual harassment in the workplace and requires any supervisor who receives a complaint to make sure an investigation is conducted. Byrd's complaint has triggered mandatory training for the recreation department's 750 employees on what constitutes sexual harassment -- and what managers should do about it, said Kimberley Flowers, the department's new director.

The city has been criticized previously for failing to quickly address problems in the workplace. Five female deputies at the D.C. medical examiner's office filed complaints in 2003, alleging sexual harassment and racial discrimination, and later collected a settlement that totaled $250,000.

The allegations against Thompson are drawn from Byrd's complaint and from interviews with her and two former recreation department employees. The women alleged a range of sexual harassment incidents, most of which they said took place in Thompson's office at the facilities maintenance bureau at 1515 Half St. SW.

One woman, Annette Burns, said that Thompson tried to sexually assault her in 2002 when she was eight months pregnant -- and that she reported him to Albert. Demera Gaskins said Thompson came to recreation centers where she worked last year and pressured her for sex.

Thompson, hired in 1986, according to city records, declined to comment on the allegations when contacted by telephone at his home.

"I don't have any response," he said.