On Nov. 18, Taylor filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint with the Missouri Commission on Human Rights. In it, she says Dotson and the police department are discriminating against her by seeking to discipline her for talking to me for a different column I wrote on the city’s problems with its ShotSpotter technology.

After I quoted Taylor in my column about the gunfire-detecting software being turned off for three months because the bill wasn’t paid, Col. Ed Kuntz filed an internal affairs complaint against Taylor for violating police policy about speaking to the press without proper authorization. As Taylor notes in her complaint, the policy hasn’t been previously applied to white officers who represent the St. Louis Police Officers Association and speak to reporters often in representing their union.

“I believe that this action was taken at the direction of or with the knowledge and acquiescence of Chief Dotson,” Taylor wrote in her complaint.

In Missouri, filing such an EEOC complaint is the first step in a process of suing a state employer for discrimination. The process can take as long as 18 months, said Taylor’s attorney, Brian Love.