7 hours Ago By Marina Newman
Help grow our newsroom , joining the hundreds of San Franciscans who support us by giving below. We have an ambitious goal for 2025: Double the total number of donors from last year to over 5,000! We are already 20 percent of the way there . The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s parking division is awash in racial and disability discrimination, sexual harassment, and worker retaliation, according to a former SFMTA worker whose allegations against the agency went to trial on Friday.
Elias Georgopoulos, who is half Mexican and filed suit against the transit agency in January 2022, has alleged that multiple members of the parking enforcement division, including its current director, Shawn McCormick, fostered a culture of discrimination. McCormick was accused of targeting the Mission, Bayview-Hunters Point and Excelsior for parking citations in a deposition unearthed last year, as part of the trial. The deposition was given by James Lee, former deputy director at the agency, who said McCormick regularly patrolled those neighborhoods to write up tickets – sometimes outside of work hours – even though issuing citations and patrolling the streets is not part of his job.
Want the latest on the Mission and San Francisco? Sign up for our free daily newsletter below. “Those people don’t know how to fight City Hall,” McCormick allegedly told Georgopoulos, speaking of the minority-heavy neighborhoods he is accused of targeting. That’s according to opening statements given by Georgepoloulos’ attorney, Eduardo Roy, in San Francisco Superior Court today.
Discrimination entered the workplace, too, Georgopoulos alleged. The former senior parking control office says that when he confronted McCormack over harassment at work, he was told, “Shut up, spick.” When Georgopoulos spoke Spanish with another colleague, his attorneys said, he was shouted at by a coworker to speak English.
Georgopoulos, who sufferers from rheumatoid arthritis and walks with a limp, says another parking enforcement officer called him a “crippled faggot” and told coworkers that he “identified as a woman,” took drugs at work, and had sex with his superiors. The SFMTA has denied any wrongdoing. The agency argued on Friday that Georgopoulos was not harassed, and alleged that Georgeopoulos, himself, regularly yelled at his subordinates, treated employees unfairly, and wore a bodycam in the workplace against city policy.
The SFMTA said Georgopoulos received a written warning both for “yelling at a subordinate” and wearing a body camera in the office. McCormick denies ever calling Georgopulos a “spick.” McCormick sat behind his attorneys on Friday morning, wearing his SFMTA uniform decorated with stars on his lapel.
He is scheduled to take the stand later in the trial. On Friday, attorneys for both Georgopoulos and the SFMTA gave their opening statements in what is expected to be a days-long trial. Though Georgopoulos was a supervisor himself and knew the rules “inside and out,” his attorney Roy said, “he was subject to a different set of rules: Elias’s rules.
” Georgeopoulos’ wife was allegedly subject to harassment, too. She worked alongside Georgeopoulos at the SFMTA, and Roy alleged that one coworker, who Georgeopoulos had disciplined for being late, told her “I know where you live, and I’m going to come get you.” Georgopoulos and his wife were allegedly so worried for their safety that they upgraded their home security system and bought a gun.
Roy said Georgopoulos was afraid to go into work each day, and would often stay home to avoid further harassment. When Georgopoulos emailed his superiors, including McCormick and human resources, that he felt he was being discriminated against, he said they did not provide a response. Lee, the since-retired deputy director who alleged McCormick was targeting minority neighborhoods, testified on Friday briefly, before Roy had to recess for the day after the attorney fell ill.
The testimony was uneventul. Lee was asked to read the SFMTA’s policies against discrimination, sexual harassment, and retaliation. All, expectedly, are widely prohibited.
Despite Roy’s strong cough, the trial is expected to resume on Monday, when Lee will take the stand again. We're a small, independent, nonprofit newsroom that works hard to bring you news you can't get elsewhere. In 2025, we have a lofty goal: 5,000 donors by the end of the year — more than double the number we had last year.
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