Female Lifeguards In Chicago Say Sexual Misconduct Has Been Endemic For Decades
Every summer, Chicagoans flock to the lakefront to cool down at public beaches, where squads of lifeguards work hard to keep swimmers safe.
And now, as WBEZ's Dan Mihalopoulos reports, the city is taking a closer look at a problem that some of them allege goes back decades: supervisors committing acts of sexual violence against young female lifeguards.
The Chicago Park District’s inspector general has been secretly investigating widespread complaints of “sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, workplace violence and other criminal acts” since last year, sparked by letters from two former lifeguards.
WBEZ obtained confidential documents from the ongoing probe, and first reported on it in April. Since then, nearly a dozen current and former lifeguards have reached out to share their stories of being sexually harassed or assaulted by their supervisors, often when they were underage.
They describe a culture in which sexual harassment and workplace abuse are the norm, and allege that park district officials — who say publicly that they do not tolerate such misconduct — have failed to adequately address the issue since the 1970s.
Julie Tortorich, who says she was abused by a supervisor as a teen lifeguard more than 40 years ago, believes the problem is systemic.
“I am 60 years old now. What happened to me was so long ago, and if it’s going on now, I can’t even begin to imagine how many more women that this happened to in their jobs as lifeguards with the park district.”
One woman, now in her 30s, says she was abused twice by the same supervisor, but didn’t report the incidents because it “was both part of the culture of the beach to not tell and then it was also that I was really young and there’s this level of shame when something like that happens to you.”
She asked not to be identified because that supervisor is now a police officer.
For more on the allegations and the city’s response, listen to the story or read it here. A warning: It contains descriptions of sexual abuse that some audiences may find disturbing.
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