CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Euclid police officer of Puerto Rican descent has filed a lawsuit accusing two supervising officers of making anti-Mexican jokes about President Trump’s proposal to build a border wall.

Shane Rivera, a six-year department veteran, claims in the suit that the “bigoted” officers joked in staff meetings about how Rivera would get a make-believe pet donkey across the U.S.-Mexico border if a wall is built, and one officer referred to Puerto Ricans as “shipwrecked Mexicans” during another staff meeting with Rivera present.

Rivera also said the department retaliated against him after he filed a complaint with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission in February.

The complaint filed Thursday in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court names the city of Euclid, Lt. Timothy Verh and Sgt. Derek Kocsis. It accuses them of creating a hostile work environment through discrimination and retaliation, and refers to the actions as bigoted.

Rivera is seeking at least $25,000 in damages and a chance to take his case before a jury. The suit also seeks a requirement for the Euclid Police Department to institute policies and educational programs to prevent any future workplace discrimination.

“Prejudice in any workplace in intolerable," Rivera’s attorney, Sean Sobel, said in an emailed statement. "Prejudice in the police department does not serve a civilized society and calls into doubt the department’s ability to fairly protect its citizenry.”

Euclid Law Director Kelley Sweeney declined to comment on the lawsuit because it is pending litigation.

Police Chief Scott Meyer said in an emailed statement that he could not comment on the substance of Rivera’s lawsuit, but then said the department is committed to “the fair and ethical treatment of all people.”

“I do not tolerate or condone any harassment or discriminatory behavior by the officers or staff of the Euclid Police Department directed either internally or externally,” Meyer said in the statement. “Any such behavior of that nature shall be handled swiftly and severely.”

Verh and Kocsis could not immediately be reached for comment.

Rivera was sued in federal court alongside Officer Michael Amiott over the violent December 2016 arrest of Emirius Spencer. Spencer claimed Amiott and Rivera used excessive force against him during an arrest for a misdemeanor marijuana possession while the two officers were moonlighting as security at the apartment complex where Spencer lived.

The city of Euclid agreed to pay Spencer $40,000 to settle the case. The department and the officers admitted no fault as part of the settlement.

The case was featured in an episode of the Serial podcast that aired last fall. Euclid City Council voted Dec. 3 to treat marijuana possession of 100 grams or less as a minor misdemeanor. Councilwoman Stephana Caviness, chair of the public safety committee, cited the Serial podcast as motivation for the change.

Rivera has been with the department since 2013.

In October 2018, Verh and Kocsis began making jokes about Rivera being Mexican, and began associating him with offensive Mexican stereotypes, apparently unaware that Puerto Rico is a territory of the U.S. and its citizens are U.S. citizens, and not Mexico, the suit says.

The officers printed out a piece of paper with a photograph of a donkey carrying ammunition under the words “MISSING DONKEY ‘PEPE,’” and with a call for anyone who’s seen the donkey to contact Rivera, the suit says. The picture was posted on a bulletin board within the police department dubbed the “Wall of Shame,” the suit said.

Another poster in a hallway at the police station depicted a scene from the movie Blazing Saddles with a Mexican bandito character, with the line “Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges,'” the suit said. Someone wrote Rivera’s badge number, 82, on the hat of the bandito character, the suit says.

A third poster showed a scene from the movie Napoleon Dynamite with the character “Pedro,” an exchange student from Juarez, Mexico, the suit said. Someone cut a picture of Rivera’s face and placed it over the face of Pedro, and replaced Pedro’s name with Rivera on the main character’s iconic “Vote for Pedro” T-shirt.

The jokes continued into January, when they began to spill into roll-call meetings, briefings where officers gather at the beginning of each shift, the suit said.

At a Jan. 3 roll-call meeting, Kocsis referenced a story on Fox News about the wall that President Trump has promised to build along the U.S.-Mexico border, then turned to Rivera and asked him how Mexicans feel about the wall, the suit says. Kocsis then said “Oh that’s right, you’re Puerto Rican,” according to the suit.

Kocsis then asked the room, “What are Puerto Ricans? Shipwrecked Mexicans,” the suit says.

Verh turned to Rivera and asked him how he was going to Pepe over the wall when he rides him to work, the suit said. Verh made similar jokes at a Jan. 21 roll-call meeting, the suit said.

Rivera became fed up with the behavior and filed a complaint with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission on Feb. 4 accusing the department of discriminating against him on the basis of his nationality, the suit said.

At a roll-call meeting later that month, Verh distributed a pamphlet of the department’s sexual harassment and discrimination. Euclid city council member Christine McIntosh was at the meeting and, in front of her, Verh made a joke about the Mexican beer Dos Equis being brewed in Rivera’s “motherland,” the suit says.

After McIntosh left, Verh said he could go over the department’s discrimination and sexual harassment policy and quipped that it was because he called Rivera a Mexican, the lawsuit says. Verh then said he had to remove the Wall of Shame, because “somebody done f----d it up for everybody else,” the suit says.

The suit also claims that someone in the police department tipped off WEWS Channel 5 on Tuesday to Rivera’s February complaint to the Ohio Civil Rights Commission in an effort to portray him as disloyal to his fellow officers.

To comment on this story, please visit Thursday’s crime and courts comments page.