Black and Latino Police Punished for Resisting Racial Profiling

A dozen Black and Latino NYPD officers filed a lawsuit earlier this week alleging that police institutions punish them if they resist implementing a quota system that targets their own communities.

The plaintiffs claim that the New York Police Department is violating a state labor law by enforcing quotas of issuing “summons, tickets or number of arrests,” the New York Daily News report.

They further allege they are unfairly punished when they are “unwilling to perform racially discriminatory and unwarranted enforcement actions against the minority community.”

Pedro Serrano, a Puerto Rican officer, said he was told by a superior that citizens of a predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood were “animals,” when he complained about racist policing there. Serrano also received poor performance evaluations for reporting police malpractice and criticizing the illegal quotas, according to ThinkProgress.

Serrano is one of the plaintiffs who say they are unfairly punished and harassed by colleagues and superiors with threats of being laid off, denial of benefits, and downgrades.

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The lawsuit claims that resistance to racist policing by officers of color has “led to a racially unfair and unreasonable performance evaluation system … to which white police officers are not subjected.”

Adhyl Polanco, a Latino officer who went to the media in 2009 to expose how arrest and summons quotas disproportionately affect communities of color, said he has since earned a bad reputation that has led to bullying, being called a “f*cking b*tch,” suspension, probation and being placed on mental watch.

Another officer, Sandy Gonzalez, was stationed alone in the cold as punishment for refusing to meet the enforced quota.

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The NYPD, however, asserts that the police department does not impose such quotas.

“There are no numerical enforcement quotas established by the NYPD,” Deputy Commissioner Stephen Davis said in a statement. “Performance evaluations are conducted for all department employees based on an assessment of their duties, responsibilities and specific conditions of their assignments.”