They say that if you simply "act properly" you won't get hassled or harassed by police. "Simply raise your kids right" and everything will be ok. So why is it that even off duty NYPD Officers who happen to be black,
are telling Reuters that they were profiled and harassed - almost exclusively by White Officers - just like Eric Garner?
Reuters interviewed 25 African-American NYPD Officers, 10 of whom were still on the force, the other 15 retired. All stated that while off-duty and in plain clothes, they had been the subject of racial profiling and sometimes violence by their own fellow - white - officers.
The officers said this included being pulled over for no reason, having their heads slammed against their cars, getting guns brandished in their faces, being thrown into prison vans and experiencing stop and frisks while shopping. The majority of the officers said they had been pulled over multiple times while driving. Five had had guns pulled on them.
Desmond Blaize, who retired two years ago as a sergeant in the 41st Precinct in the Bronx, said he once got stopped while taking a jog through Brooklyn’s upmarket Prospect Park. “I had my ID on me so it didn’t escalate,” said Blaize, who has sued the department alleging he was racially harassed on the job. “But what’s suspicious about a jogger? In jogging clothes?”
And what's worse is that when these officers complained about this treatment, rather than it being addressed, they were retaliated against for bringing the issue up.
All but one said their supervisors either dismissed the complaints or retaliated against them by denying them overtime, choice assignments, or promotions. The remaining officers who made no complaints said they refrained from doing so either because they feared retribution or because they saw racial profiling as part of the system.
This is the department that so many on the Right, and on Fox News, thinks deserves no criticism - or that criticism of the department itself is
dangerous - and has no room for improvement?
How is it possible that even Black Police Officers aren't safe from being harassed and assaulted, yet the NYPD claims they're just "going where the crime is?" How much more upstanding do you have to be than being a Police Officer in order to be treated reasonably, fairly, without unreasonable fear and suspicion without probable cause? If even these guys aren't free from this type of treatment, what hope is there for someone like Eric Garner to get equal and fair justice?