LAWRENCE, Ind. -- After four black police officers filed a complaint Wednesday alleging that she engaged in racial discrimination, Lawrence Mayor Deborah Cantwell said she believed the complaint was "partially politically motivated."

In the complaint filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the four officers -- the only black officers in the Lawrence Police Department -- said Cantwell uses a racial epithet, and that high-ranking officers referred to black officers as "colored people."

The complaint also alleges the police department has been discriminatory regarding promotions and that dispatchers withhold vital information about potentially dangerous situations from black officers.

"We’ve been promised jobs that we've never received," said one of the complainants, Lawrence police Lt. Ray Anderson. "We have been demoted without explanations. We have been threatened and demeaned."

Cantwell denied saying any epithet. She said she believes the criticism has come, in part, because a new police chief has reorganized the department, making moves that have cost black officers and white officers rank and promotions.

She also said politics had something to do with the complaint.

"It makes me angry -- it makes me sad -- that somebody would create a lie like this," Cantwell told 6News' Jack Rinehart. "It's an election year, and I see this as being partially politically motivated."