California officer’s lawsuit accuses colleagues of racially harassing him

A California police officer is suing his department after allegedly being subjected to racist remarks by a supervisor, pressured to meet arrest quotas and retaliated against for reporting misconduct. Andrew Hwang, a Korean American officer, filed the civil lawsuit against the Glendora Police Department in Los Angeles County, where he has worked since 2023. The City of Glendora and the department have not publicly responded to his complaint.

According to the lawsuit and Hwang’s public statements, one of the key incidents occurred during an end-of-deployment department dinner in Rancho Cucamonga. Hwang told FOX11 that a lieutenant told him to “get back in the kitchen and cook for the group because you’re Asian.” He later said, “I’m Korean. I’m not even Japanese, but they think it’s funny to lump us together as one.”

The complaint also describes a message from another officer that included a video with stereotypical phrases such as “noodle, noodle, noodle… wok, wok, wok.” Hwang, who described himself as the department’s only Asian officer at the time, said the message showed how racial remarks had become common within the workplace.

Hwang alleges that officers were regularly pressured to increase arrests. The lawsuit cites messages from the president of the Glendora Police Officers Association urging officers to push annual arrest numbers back up to about 1,700 a year. Other department-wide messages included phrases such as “the jail sure is empty” and “those crickets are getting loud.” Hwang said, “If you put the expectation of a quota onto officers, it opens the door to corruption, to unethical stops, unethical arrests.”

After he reported the alleged harassment, Hwang says his complaint was exposed inside the department and that he became the subject of three internal affairs investigations. He was placed on administrative leave. His civil attorney, George Aloupas, said the investigations were initiated in retaliation intended to portray Hwang as a poor performer and justify termination. Hwang remains on leave while his lawsuit against the city and the department moves forward.

While Hwang’s lawsuit is specific to Glendora, his complaint aligns with broader data showing that Asian American workers often face barriers to reporting discrimination. A 2023 national survey by the Pew Research Center found that 58% of Asian adults in the U.S. said they had experienced racial discrimination or unfair treatment because of their race or ethnicity.

A separate 2025 survey by Stop AAPI Hate and the University of Chicago’s NORC found that 53% of Asian American and Pacific Islander respondents experienced at least one race-based hate act in 2024 and that 66% of those who faced potentially unlawful incidents did not report them. This reluctance is often attributed to cultural factors emphasizing harmony and professional risks, such as the fear of retaliation which, as alleged in Hwang’s case, can take the form of internal investigations and administrative penalties.