Officer sues to be beauty contestant — Off-duty rights are at issue, union says
Officer Deanna Mory was named Ms. California 2006 and 2007; she is preparing to compete in the national pageant in July.

By Mark Arner, Union-Tribune Staff Writer

A Chula Vista police officer is suing the Police Department and the city, alleging her supervisors pressured her to stop competing in beauty pageants.

Officer Deanna Mory, hired in 2005, says police administrators began pressuring her a year ago to stop competing in pageants. The Chula Vista Police Officers’ Association, the police union, has filed two lawsuits on her behalf against the city and the department.

Mory, 23, said the dispute began when she told her boss on Jan. 4, 2006, that she had been named Ms. California by a Florida-based pageant organization, and she wanted to compete in the group’s 2006 Ms. United States pageant.

Her immediate supervisor, Lt. Mike Becker, told her the pageant would not violate a department policy regarding outside activities, she said. Two weeks later, other department administrators ordered her to give up the Ms. California title and to withdraw from the national contest, Mory said.

Union representatives said they tried to negotiate a compromise with Mory’s bosses but failed. They then sued on July 19, three days before the national pageant, alleging police supervisors were enforcing a policy in a way that discriminated against female police officers by denying them their constitutional right to free speech. The department allows officers to participate in outside competitions, such as a “Baker-to-Vegas bike competition,” the union’s lawsuit states.

The union sued again March 13, alleging that in January nine lieutenants and top city and police officials pressured the union into dropping the first lawsuit. The lawsuit claims the officials violated a law banning government employers from restraining or denying the exercise of employees’ constitutional rights.

Officer Deanna Mory says she believes the 16 years she has spent competing in beauty pageants have given her some of the skills she needed to become a police officer.

Amid the litigation, Mory has remained a national pageant contestant. In July she placed second and won a spirit award. In January she was named Ms. California 2007 and is preparing to compete in the Ms. United States pageant in July.

Mark Arner: (619) 542-4556; mark.arner@uniontrib.com

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