A black NYPD whistle blower is claiming not only that racism is rampant throughout the police organization but also that quotas have been imposed on the officers for the number of tickets they are supposed to write.
Officer Dana Harge has filed a federal complaint in which he claimed that “racism is routine” and that there was a quota of 70 summonses per month.
“Any officer not making his quota can be given inconvenient tours of duty, a bad car to work with and even an involuntary transfer out of Highway, something which bodes badly for the officer’s career,” he said.
“Many of the actions taken against me were motivated by racism and were intended to prevent me from making my quota and would have resulted in the desired end of an involuntary transfer.”
Harge continued on, saying that there were rampant examples of racism all during his time as an officer, including promotion papers that “mysteriously disappeared” and assignments and problems put against him specifically to prevent his reaching the quota.
“In May of 2015 I came in with 82 summonses, which is well above the quota of 70 per month…After that I was not allowed to use an unmarked (car) to get me to stop being successful and to get me transferred out of highway,” he said.
Harge’s complaint is only part of a much larger problem between police and the communities that they are supposed to serve.
“If the NYPD doesn’t know how to treat blacks in their own ranks, I don’t see how they ever going to improve relations with the black community,” Harge’s lawyer Fred Lichtmacher told The New York Daily News.