Ex-Willits Police Officer Awarded $2.25 Million in Sexual Harassment Lawsuit Tied to Disgraced Cop Derek Hendry

Natalie Higley while working for the Willits Police Department. [Photo from the Willits Police Department’s Facebook page]

Higley’s judicial fight is over. As per an announcement from the City of Willits submitted to the Willits Weekly, the City Council unanimously approved a conditional settlement agreement with Higley during a closed session on February 24, 2024. The settlement agreement became effective on April 18 freeing the City of Willits from a “potentially lengthy, uncertain, and expensive jury trial,” according to the announcement.

As confirmed by City Councilmember Greta Kanne, Higley received a settlement of $2.25 million for agreeing to dismiss her lawsuit.

According to court documents, Higley’s career with the Willits Police Department began when she was recruited by then-Lieutenant Hendry enrolling in a regional police academy in July 2020. Her stint at the agency would be over by the following October after she reported Hendry’s alleged harassment to Chief Fabian Lizarraga and her physician placed her on medical leave due to stress.

This is not the first lawsuit the City of Willits has faced involving Hendry’s work conduct. In December 2022, they settled a civil suit filed by former Willits Police Chief Alexis Blaylock who alleged that during her one month at the helm of WPD she experienced a hostile, sexist, and racist work environment. The civil suit cites multiple interactions between Blaylock and Hendry as evidence of these claims. Blaylock received $250,000.

Between these two civil suits, the actions of former Lieutenant Derek Hendry have cost the City of Willits a total of $2.5 million.

A photograph of Derek Hendry obtained via public records request from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office. [The original photograph was extremely saturated so we used a black and white filter for visual clarity]

Hendry is no longer employed at the Willits Police Department. California’s Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training is investigating Hendry looking into claims he abused his police powers and demonstrated bias on the job. If the claims are verified, Hendry will never be able to be a cop in California again.

Hendry’s termination likely offers limited consolation to the three women who have publicly come forward with allegations of abuse by Hendry: Natalie Higley, Lorna Allen, or Alexis Blaylock.

According to the civil suit, Higley endured relentless harassment by Hendry about her weight. He allegedly postured frequently in front of Higley about his prowess with women weaving explicit sexual language into work talk. 

Once, under the guise of celebrating a workplace achievement, Hendry allegedly picked Higley up from her home in a vehicle and drove her to a “deserted road where no home or building was in sight.” He began probing Higley with personal questions about her sexual preferences and exploits. Alone in a vehicle with her superior officer and a physically dominating man, Higley said she was asked by Hendry, “Would you fuck me?” When she refused, Hendry allegedly said, “You would totally fuck me, wouldn’t you?”

Higley is not the only woman alleging Hendry was inappropriate with her. Nor are her assertions the worst.  Lorna Allen, aged 41, came forward in December 2022 alleging abuse by Hendry while he served as a law enforcement officer. During the period spanning 2015 to 2020, while struggling with addiction and financial hardship, Allen claimed that Hendry subjected her to physical violence, threats of imprisonment, and abuse of his authority as a police officer to coerce her into engaging in multiple sexual encounters, including one incident inside a police vehicle.

During our interview with Allen in December 2022, she recounted instances where Hendry threatened to frame her with heroin possession and arrest her on drug charges if she did not comply with his sexual demands. Allen also described engaging in sexual acts with Hendry in the back of his patrol vehicle while he was in uniform. 

Photo of Alexis Blaylock from the Willits press release announcing that she had been hired.

Alexis Blaylock was hired to lead the Willits Police Department in August 2020. Her civil suit alleges she was immediately met with dissension by her lower-ranking Lieutenant Hendry.

Court documents allege Hendry undermined Blaylock’s leadership on the basis of gender and race. He allegedly expressed to her that he had reservations about reporting to a female chief, indicating that he and other officers were not accustomed to female leadership.

In the presence of City of Willits’s Human Resources Director Karen Stevenson, Lieutenant Hendry allegedly remarked that it felt “odd” to work under a woman. Additionally, the letter notes that Lieutenant Hendry conveyed to an unnamed city employee that Chief Blaylock’s race played a significant role in his opposition to her.

For the first time since her abrupt exit as the Willits Police Chief and the settlement of her lawsuit against the City of Willits, veteran law enforcement officer Alexis Blaylock spoke with us about the work environment that enabled Hendry to remain employed and in power for as long as he did.

Blaylock said that when she was at the helm of the Willits Police Department for that brief stint in early-Fall 200, she told City Manager Stephanie Garrabrant-Sierra and the Human Resources Manager Karen Stevenson that Hendry was a “serious liability” offering city staff “concrete examples to support my concerns.” Instead of supporting Blaylock in her concerns, she says she was met with all-out defense of Hendry. Further, she says City administration ordered Blaylock not to investigate Hendry or anyone else in the department, seemingly insulating Hendry from scrutiny.

Blaylock found in her role as the Willits Police Chief, city administrative staff had “undermined my efforts to establish a clean and ethical police department that would give the citizens and visitors of Willits the high-quality service they deserved”

After Blaylock resigned and filed her civil suit, she learned “some Willits city administrators (including one who admitted she was still friends with Hendry after he had been fired from Willits Police Department) proceeded to smear my name with false accusations that I was negligent in my job and that I was playing the race card.” Blaylock said the accusations affected her “ability to find new work.”

In Blaylock’s perspective, Natalie Higley’s lawsuit represents the inevitable conclusion of the “diabolical work of a depraved mind who was encouraged to continue in his malfeasance by administrators who refused to hold him accountable.” Blaylock calls it “tragic” that “citizens are the ones who have to foot the bill”. She maintains that the “people of Willits deserve better.

Blaylock believes that the City of Willits could have made “better decisions that would have prevented all of this.” She suggests that there is “a ‘story behind the story; of why they went through so much effort and money to protect Derek Hendry. We may never know. But then again, perhaps we will. I guess we will have to wait and see.” (Read her statement in full here.)

In 2022, Hendry was the focus of a criminal investigation. Matters of a criminal nature involving Hendry were brought forward to then Willits Police Chief Fabian Lizarraga who sought the Lake County Sheriff’s Office to investigate mitigating conflicts of interest. On August 5, 2022, LCSO’s Major Crimes unit served a search warrant on Hendry’s Ukiah home.

In subsequent interviews with Chief Lizarraga, we learned that the evidence investigators gathered pointed towards criminal activity committed by Hendry and he forwarded the case file to Mendocino County District Attorney David Eyster to formally file criminal charges. No charges were ever filed. Inquires about what happened when the file got to the DA’s desk have gone unanswered.

The Hendry-era has been hard for the Willits Police Department. Coupled with a declining municipal budget and an era of police hiring shortages, Hendry’s multitude of scandals seemed to some the death knell of Mendocino County’s smallest city police department.

Willits City Councilmember Greta Kanne had a different take for us in a recent correspondence. When we asked her how she would assess the culture and climate of the Willits Police Department now, she said, “It’s been a rough few years for the department, but we’re fortunate to have a core of dedicated officers and dispatchers who care deeply about our community and are committed to helping WPD be the best it can be.”

When Chief Fabian Lizarraga resigned in August 2023, the City of Willits decided to hire on two interim chiefs to lead the agency while the city manager found a new permanent chief. Councilmember Kanne said, “We’ve recently had two excellent interim chiefs in Connor and Dewey while we recruit for a permanent chief, and I have faith in our city manager to select a candidate who will continue to emphasize community policing and work to rebuild the department.”

Last night, Friday, April 26, 2024, Councilmember Kanne attended a promotion ceremony for officers of the Willits Police which she saw as emblematic of a new era for the agency, She said, “Mayor Rodriguez and I were at City Hall tonight for the promotion ceremonies for Rodrigo Avalos who was promoted to Sergeant and Mike Stainbrook who was promoted to Dispatch Supervisor. Both men are highly respected and deserving of their promotions.”

At the ceremony, Councilmember Kanne heard Interim Chief Dewey express his belief that “the department can look forward to continued improvement with these two in leadership roles.”

Despite the agency’s setbacks, Councilmember Kanne is hopeful. She said, “ I think residents should feel proud of our current staff at WPD and look forward to the future.”

Earlier:

• Former Willits Police Lieutenant Becomes Target of Criminal Investigation
• ‘Fog of Fear’: Willits Woman Accuses Former Mendocino County Cop of Sexual Coercion and Violence While On Duty
• Willits Police Department Sued by Former Female Officer Who Alleges Sexual Harassment and Hostility by Fired Lieutenant, Retaliation by Chief of Police