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s if the New York City Police Department weren’t already in enough legal trouble, three officers are accusing three supervisors of an elite anti-gun unit of blatant racism.
A retired NYPD detective and two active detectives said under oath that their supervisors handled white suspects with kid gloves, while treating blacks like “animals” deserving of a bullet to the head, according to the New York Daily News. The detectives made their sworn statements as part of an employment discrimination lawsuit filed by one of them in Brooklyn Federal Court. The lawsuit, filed by Detective Debra Lawson, alleges that minority-group members in the unit were passed over for good assignments and career advancement.
The Daily News reported the officers’ accusations against two of their supervisors: Lt. Daniel Davin and Capt. James Coan.
The paper reports:
“Capt. Coan would tell the field team . . . ‘They are f—–g animals. You make sure if you have to shoot, you shoot them in the head. That way there’s one story,’ ” said the retired detective.
The article lists other racial slurs the supervisors allegedly made against the officers themselves and against suspects. According to court papers, Davin was “reinstructed” about his racist comments in 2010.
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