Discrimination from the Inside Out

As we know, most negative habits that children acquire are picked up, rather than learned, at home most of the times. For children its from parents and immediate family. For adults on the other hand with jobs with a chain of authority, its what they pick up from their superiors in the job place. For example, if a Captain singles out a minority officer and makes unequal and discriminatory remarks, what can we expect other officers below the chain of command to do; exactly what their commanders and captains do, because they are the immediate parents of the precinct and to rookies they're like little kids in school.

There has been numerous incidents and allegations of what is called "departmental discrimination". You might think for a second that this whole "protected by the blue shield" unwritten code of secrecy that the NYPD stands by would prompt them to treat all people behind this shield equally and brotherly. Some people dream of being police officers their whole lives and then they get there and because of their skin color or nationality they aren't accepted into this family that they've dreamed of being in since child hood, it's extremely ridiculous and disgraceful.

Off duty NYPD Officer Aki Perez, twenty-five years old, of Puerto Rican descent was on his way to his mother's house last year when he was stopped by two undercover narcotics detectives. Nothing was said about whether Officer Perez identified himself as an officer, but if you're an off duty cop and you are stopped by on duty officers, what would you do first? So the detectives searched Officer Perez found no drugs or illegal contraband on him, but still they proceeded to detain Officer Perez. When they took him to the precinct he took a voluntary drug test and passed it and they still proceeded to charge him with loitering and criminal possession of a controlled substance, charges which were later dropped. Officer Perez countered with a 5-million dollar law suit against the NYPD accusing them of maintaining a hostile work environment, conducting unwarranted investigations, and dispensing overly severe disciplinary penalties.

So if an officer is experiencing that first hand from superiors, what do you think he's going to do when he hits the streets full of minorities.

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/race_class/cops_benson/discrim.htm