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Judge: Racial Profiling Allegations Against NYPD Warrant Trial

or the past half-century, the NYPD and other high profile urban police departments have largely been able to shield themselves against charges of institutional racism by pointing to their anti-discrimination policies. When social justice activists allege racial profiling, police say it’s impossible because their officers are trained, monitored and disciplined. This defense has placated the public and many courts over the years. But recently some officers themselves have been letting their masks slip, revealing themselves as bigots and getting caught.

On Tuesday, yet another NYPD officer pleaded guilty in connection with charges of falsely arresting someone. The night of the April 2011 arrest, the government intercepted calls and text messages indicating that the officer, Michael Daragjati, had fabricated facts in the police report, according to the New York Times. The next day, the government intercepted and recorded more damning evidence. By phone, Officer Daragjati told a female friend, he had “fried another nigger.”

Still, Daragjati’s defense attorney Eric Franz, insisted that racial animus did not motivate his client, the New York Post reports. “Race played no part in the decision he made in effectuating the arrest of the individual in question,” Franz said.

Daragjati’s conviction comes on the heels of three similar convictions: all involving officers who planted drugs, as part of what a New York State Supreme Court Justice called “pervasive” misconduct. In only one instance has the race of the victims been revealed to be black. But the chances are pretty good that the others were too, given that 84 percent of all people stopped by the NYPD in the first six months of 2011 were black and/or Latino, a disparity that has persisted since at least 2006.

To keep track of officers convicted for framing the arrest of suspects, Dominion of New York is launching a gallery of such officers and asking the public to help us build it. The first iteration will consist simply of photos of the officers or their victims (if the officers aren’t available), with links to articles describing their crimes.

We want to include contemporary incidents involving U.S. police officers only and are therefore, limiting the convictions to those occurring since 1990. When you hear about an incident that we should include, write it in the comment section below. We’ll research it and if it passes muster, publish it.

NYPD Officer Michael Daragjati pleaded guilty to falsely arresting a Staten Island man in January 2012.

NYPD Officer Jason Arbeeny was convicted in November 2011 of planting drugs on a woman and her boyfriend.

NYPD Officer Steve Anderson pleaded guilty to official misconduct in 2008, after helping another officer plant drugs on a suspect.

NYPD officer Henry Tavarez pleaded guilty in 2010 to filing a false police affidavit after falsely charging these two men — Maximo Colon and his brother Jose — with selling cocaine.