Toxic mold, bugs, rats and disease run rampant through the Police Station, according to 10 Somerville cops who are suing the city and the state to get out of the building.
 
The 10-count lawsuit says city and state officials engaged in conduct that "shocks the conscience" by refusing to remove police and 911 dispatchers from the Somerville Police Station despite knowing of the hazardous conditions inside.
 
"It's an injunction to get them out of the goddamn building," said Stephen D'Angelo, the attorney for the cops Tuesday. "They're really concerned about their health. They are scared and I don't blame them."
 
Hazardous conditions at the police station in Union Square led to an outbreak of scabies among police and firefighters from 1986 to 1990. Continued exposure to mold and fungi in the building has created an epidemic of asthma and other respiratory ailments among police and 911 dispatchers, according to the suit, which was filed at Middlesex Superior Court Tuesday.
 
On hot days, some cops have even "refused" to arrest some individuals because they believe holding prisoners in the police station's jail cells would be "inhumane" because of poor ventilation and temperatures exceeding 100 degrees, the suit states.
 
Mayor Joe Curtatone said Tuesday that he hasn't seen the lawsuit against him and the city, yet. But Curtatone said he has been working to get police out of the station at 220 Washington St.
 
"The city has been working for months on both short-term and long-term resolutions," Curtatone said. "Even if I found a place tomorrow [to relocate police] it would take months, maybe even a year to retrofit."
 
 
Last month the city advertised for a place to relocate the Police Department. But only one local property owner on Dane Street responded to the advertisement, and Curtatone said it could take the city until the end of this year to determine if it can afford to move into the building. The mayor said it could take millions of dollars to build jail cells and a 911 call center at the Dane Street location. The city is also exploring the construction of a new police station.
 
But the lawsuit charges that city and state officials knew as far back as 1998 about "elevated levels" of toxic molds, such as stachybotyrs and aspergillus, in the station, and still haven't acted to get workers out of the building. But by refusing to remove police from the building, the suit claims the city made "unknowing" workers the subject of an "experiment."
 
Curtatone, former Mayor Dorothy Kelly Gay and the last three Somerville police chiefs, including acting Chief Robert Bradley, were all named as defendants in the suit.
 
D'Angelo said city officials, including Curtatone, have repeatedly said the police will be moved out of the station, but will not say when.
 
"The mayor has said we're going to get them out of there," D'Angelo said. "They're still in the building. The kinds of illnesses they're coming down with are pretty extraordinary."
 
The lawsuit claims rare diseases, such as sarcoidosis, have developed among three police officers because of damp conditions at the station. Pulmonary diseases, asthma, flu-like symptoms, allergy symptoms and acquired leukemia have all been attributed to the conditions at the police station by the plaintiffs, the suit says.
 
In a sworn affidavit, police officer and plaintiff in the suit Timothy Mitsakis said he has never smoked, but began experiencing difficulty breathing after he began working at the police station in 2002. Mitsakis said he has been diagnosed with sarcoidosis and doctors have told him it is attributable to inhaling airborne toxins.
 
Emergency dispatcher and plaintiff Susan Desousa said she began experiencing shortness of breath, debilitating headaches, eye and throat irritation and shortness of breath in 2001. Desousa stated in an affidavit that doctors prescribed her medications for the symptoms. All of the symptoms subsided when she left her job during her maternity leave, she stated.
 
Police Sergeant and plaintiff John Aufiero said he has also suffered headaches and fatigue since he began working in the police station. Last month, Aufiero stated he took a thermometer into the booking/cell block area at the police station and recorded a temperature of 101 degrees. He said he has ordered prisoners be taken out of their cells and "showered in order to cool their body temperatures."
 
The other officers and dispatchers behind the suit are: Neil Collins, Robyn Defranzo, Daniel Hyde, Patrick Irving, Thomas Leyne, John Mahoney, Joseph McCain, William McCarthy and Louis Remigio.
 
D'Angelo said the police officers and dispatchers behind the lawsuit want out of the police station. The suit asks for the Police Department to be moved to the old Powder House Community School and to relocate Somerville prisoners temporarily into the State Police facility in Wellington Circle. The suit also seeks compensation for attorney fees and damages.
 
But the police officers and 911 dispatchers behind the lawsuit aren't limiting the suit to local officials. The complaints also claims Governor Willard Mitt Romney and the state Department of Occupational Safety are partly to blame because the state "failed to take any progressive action" to improve conditions at the Police Station or to get cops out of the building.
 
DOS inspected the police station last fall and ordered the city to take several "corrective" measures to address several safety code violations.
 
But the suit claims Curtatone told DOS in an April letter that the city does not intend to spend money to address problems at the police station because the mayor said the city intended to move police out of the building by June 30.
 
That date has come and gone, and D'Angelo said the state still hasn't enforced its regulations.
 
D'Angelo said almost every day he receives phone calls from two or three Somerville Police, dispatchers, or firefighters relaying some sort of illness they are suffering which might be attributable to conditions at the building at 220 Washington St.
 
By filing the suit, D'Angelo said he's hoping he can speed the process of getting cops out of the building.
 

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