Three young women who joined the Aurora Police Department’s Explorers program as teenagers with hopes it would help launch them into careers in law enforcement instead were groped during training exercises and sexually harassed by other young male members of the program, a new federal lawsuit claims.

The lawsuit alleges the three girls complained to the adult Aurora police officers running the law-enforcement training program for youth, but their concerns were given little consideration. The lawsuit claims the boys who targeted them were given a pass while the girls were subjected to increasing retaliation.

Eventually, the girls were dismissed from the program in 2019 after it was discovered they had commented on a meme in private text messages between themselves to express their frustration, and their comments ended up on a private Instagram account of another girl in the program, according to the lawsuit.

The Explorer program is an educational curriculum for teenagers ages 14 to 19 run by the Aurora Police Department that includes a 16-week training academy. Those who complete the academy continue to participate in regional and national competitions and assist Aurora police at DUI checkpoints, traffic control and community events. Explorers also go on ride-alongs with police officers.

The lawsuit claims Aurora police officers who supervised them also used “patently discriminatory and shocking language” during meetings to go over the girls’ concerns, including one recorded conversation with one of the young women and her mother, where a supervising adult officer said female Explorers should “keep it classy. Look good but keep it classy” during department events such as parties.

“We learned that it’s police vs. everyone else,” said Kaitlyn Rooney, now 21, who joined the Explorer program at 14 and is one of those suing. “They will protect their own, even if it’s not right.”

When contacted for comment about the lawsuit Friday morning, a spokesperson for the police department said they could not provide a response that day because of the Veterans Day holiday.

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The lawsuit says the women suing were dismissed from the Explorer program in November 2019, which they appealed. They claim the police department allowed them to be reinstated in July 2022 on the condition that they immediately resign.

The three women filed their lawsuit Oct. 23. They previously filed complaints with the Colorado Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Colorado Civil Rights Division. They received notice of their right to sue from the Civil Rights Division in July. The Aurora Police Department also received copies of the notices, according to the lawsuit.

The police department has not filed a formal response to the lawsuit in court as of Friday.

One of the lawsuit’s allegations says a male Explorer who had a supervisory role in the program sent Rooney – still underage at the time – a text message saying, “Even if there wasn’t gravity on earth, I’d still fall for you. Just a nightly pickup line lol. Goodnight, sleep well. (Talk to you) tomorrow,” followed by several heart emojis.

The male Explorer, identified only by initials A.B. in the lawsuit, sent Rooney another text message saying, “Goodmorning beautiful! Did u sleep well?”, according to the lawsuit.

The case characterizes A.B.’s advances as “unwelcome” and “not consented to,” and alleges A.B. retaliated against her with discipline when she rebuffed him. One instance of retaliation included a “performance appraisal entry” from A.B. when Rooney came to a training academy wearing ripped jeans, even though male Explorers were not disciplined for the same thing, according to the complaint. The lawsuit says A.B. was never disciplined, despite Rooney and her mother reporting the alleged harassment to her supervisors and a human resources representative for the police department.

Rooney’s mother, Myra Rooney, said her daughter’s work as an Explorer was intense. Her daughter once rode in a police car going 100 mph, chasing a woman who was drunk who crashed her car. In another experience, her daughter was left in a room with a baby while officers searched for an armed felon. The officers ended up finding the felon hiding in the closet in the same room where her daughter was.

Now her daughter struggles with PTSD and must see a counselor, but Myra Rooney said it’s not the law-enforcement experiences that have her so anxious. She said she’s still recovering from how her complaints of disparate treatment as a woman ended up being handled by the Aurora Police Department.

“They just kept slipping it under the rug,” Myra Rooney said of the adult officer supervisors of the Explorers program. “And slowly it became clear to me that they know exactly what’s going on. They just don’t want it to get out.”

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The lawsuit also alleges that when another former Explorer filing the lawsuit, Rupjot Nagra, reported to several supervisors that a male Explorer grabbed her breasts and inappropriately touched other parts of her body during a search training exercise, a sex crimes investigator told Nagra what she experienced was “nothing compared to an actual sexual assault, equating it to an accidental bump into her, and asking Plaintiff Nagra why she was still complaining about it a year later.”

According to the lawsuit, one program supervisor, officer Danno Singleton, interviewed the Explorer, identified by his initials S.A., and told him there would be a “consequence.” But the lawsuit claims S.A. was not disciplined beyond being required to write a private apology letter, and he was allowed to continue serving in a leadership position with authority over women. Singleton, currently has the title of agent, the police department said in an email.

It also accuses the same male Explorer of assaulting the third woman suing, Teona Mirceska, during a training exercise by putting his hand up the back of her shirt up to her bra, and only stopped when she jumped “in shock.”

Mirceska claims she immediately reported the incident, but there was no investigation within the Explorer program. A sex crimes investigation nine months later made an “unfounded” determination, despite several witnesses, according to the lawsuit.

Agent Singleton gave her information on peer support services in the Aurora Police Department and told her to reach out if she needed to talk to someone, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit also alleges officers humiliated Rooney and Nagra on a free day during a competition trip to Arizona. A female officer made Nagra and Rooney run exercises in a hotel parking lot, which the lawsuit characterizes as corporal punishment, and repeatedly made comments about their buttocks, the case says.

“Not only was this corporal punishment not meted on any male Explorer in Chandler, but the fact also that it was done on a free day, in a hot, hotel parking lot in clear view of their colleagues and the public clearly demonstrates its discriminatory and retaliatory intent,” according to the lawsuit.

Rupjot wore black leggings that day, which no Explorers’ operating procedure prohibited, the case says. A male officer later commented in front of others that “fat people” should not wear leggings and asked if anyone could imagine him in a pair of leggings, according to the case.

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Myra Rooney said the Explorers must go through vetting to get into the program just as full officers do, such as fingerprinting, background checks and interviews, and also must follow high standards of professionalism. The young women exceeded their expectations, she said, and she’s frustrated because she believes they were retaliated against for speaking up while superior officers turned a blind eye to the behavior of the young men in the Explorers program accused of victimizing them.

“I think Kaitlyn always makes a good point when she says Explorers are held to the highest standard; they’re expected to do the right thing, even when no one is watching,” Myra said.

“And yet (APD) themselves felt that no one was watching, they felt no one could ever possibly know what happened there.”