A former San Diego police detective has filed a lawsuit against the city, alleging retaliation and a cover-up within the San Diego Police Department to protect her sergeant husband after she reported domestic abuse. Allyson Ford filed the lawsuit in San Diego County in November, speaking out on the case at a news conference on Monday to push for “accountability and reforms.” “I wholeheartedly believed in the San Diego Police Department,” Ford said. She said it was her life’s focus, joining the department as a volunteer cadet at the age of 16 and rising through the ranks to be named “Officer of the Year” in 2014. “I believed in the value and integrity and accountability that the badge represented. But in April 2020, my belief was shattered,” she continued. Ford said that’s when her husband assaulted her and endangered their then-2-year-old son. Her lawsuit claims he hit her, giving her a black eye and threatening to “shoot it out” with her. “And that night, he actually said to me that I was going to lose my job with the San Diego Police Department because of the power he had on the department and his friends and contacts,” Ford said. “And at first, I didn’t believe him because I thought that the department that I loved and that I had worked so hard for would protect me. But they did not.” Ford said department leaders then closed ranks to protect her husband, who remains on the force.   The lawsuit alleges, despite a judge’s restraining order, SDPD did not confiscate his firearms and conducted an internal investigation into the incident in which they “intentionally created a sham, reversible report to absolve [him] of accountability and perpetuate harassment, discrimination, and retaliation” against her. The city does not comment on pending litigation. Ford said department leaders then retaliated – denying her requests for leave and placing her under a microscope. On Monday she said SDPD placed her under internal investigation multiple times. “I tried to move on, and I tried to move forward. But you can’t do that when your department keeps putting you under investigation,” she said. She submitted her resignation in January 2024. “I really tried to stay and I tried to make it work, but the environment became so toxic I had no choice but to resign,” she continued. “The San Diego Police Department, to me, was supposed to be my career, my life for the rest of my working life. And they ended that.” The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages. Ford said Monday that she was speaking out to change the department’s culture, and that she never wanted it to come to this. “This was by far the hardest decision I ever had to make,” she said. “In the beginning, all I wanted was for this to just go away.” “I never wanted my son to be able to Google this later and find out what’s happening,” Ford continued. “This isn’t what anybody dreams of or wants, but it got so bad that I just couldn’t help but think that I would not have wished this treatment on my worst enemy. And I hope that they take this as a chance to make changes so that it doesn’t happen again to anybody else. I hope it ends with me.”