Post by copperkid3 on Feb 18, 2016 21:58:06 GMT -5
Over the last two years, Raymond has recorded almost a dozen officials up and down the chain of command in what he says
is an attempt to change the daily practices of the New York Police Department. He claims these tactics contradict the department’s
rhetoric about the arrival of a new era of fairer, smarter policing. In August 2015, Raymond joined 11 other police officers in filing a
class-action suit on behalf of minority officers throughout the force. The suit centers on what they claim is one of the fundamental
policies of the New York Police Department: requiring officers to meet fixed numerical goals for arrests and court summonses each month.
In Raymond’s mind, quota-based policing lies at the root of almost everything racially discriminatory about policing in New York.
Yet the department has repeatedly told the public that quotas don’t exist.
Since January 2014, the start of the two-year period during which Raymond made most of his recordings, the department has been led
by Police Commissioner William Bratton, who has presided over a decline in summonses and arrests even as crime levels have remained historically low.
He has revamped the department’s training strategy and has introduced a new program that encourages officers to spend more time getting to know
the people who live and work in the neighborhoods they patrol.
www.nytimes.com/2016/02/21/magazine/a-black-police-officers-fight-against-the-nypd.html
Raymond didn’t hide on the job. At the academy, he says, future officers were trained to remain ‘‘present and visible’’ while working in uniform,
partly so passengers could find a police officer when they needed one. On Oct. 8, 2015, for example, a group of teenage girls approached
Raymond at the Pennsylvania Avenue stop in Brooklyn and pointed out a man who had been following them. Had Raymond been hiding, he says,
they might never have found him. Raymond stopped the man, asked him some questions and ultimately arrested him for stalking.
‘‘He does these honorable things,’’ said Willie Lucas, one of the other black officers who worked in Raymond’s district.
‘‘The first time I worked with him, we were doing patrol out in the East New York area. There was a mother, she may have been a teenager,
and she was in some kind of distress, crying and really upset. Her baby may have been around 3 or 4 months old. I remember him going to talk
to her and help her out. He was willing to ride with her to the Bronx, all the way out of his jurisdiction.’’
Raymond realized that his supervisors didn’t approve of his approach. Some of them came right out and told him he was dragging down
the district’s overall arrest rate, and said they had been taking heat from their own bosses as a result. In the summer of 2010, a commander
stuck him with the weekend shift at Coney Island, the sort of unwanted job that cops call a ‘‘punitive post.’’ Other undesirable assignments followed:
sitting around with psychotic prisoners in psychiatric emergency rooms, standing at ‘‘fixed posts’’ on specific parts of subway platforms with orders not to move,
staring at video feeds of the tunnels from the confines of an airless booth called ‘‘the box.’’ As the pressures intensified over the next few years,
Raymond decided he needed to do something to protect himself — even though it could also put him at greater risk. Convinced that his supervisors
were punishing him unlawfully, and fearing for his reputation, he started to record his conversations.
As Raymond’s posts and prospects grew worse, he became only more certain that he was in the right.
Even as he handed out fewer summonses and made fewer arrests, few serious crimes were reported in
the areas he patrolled, he says. He believed that if he could get out from under the lower-level supervisors,
at least some officials at the highest levels of the department would recognize that he was the right kind of officer for New York.
He decided to try for a promotion. In December 2012, he began studying for the exam given to aspiring sergeants. The results of the test,
which he took in September 2013, could hardly have been more promising. Out of about 6,000 test takers, just 932 passed, and Raymond placed eighth.
‘‘Everything I do points to a job well done,’’ he said. Any week now, he expected the administration to begin promoting officers from his class.
Through October and November, he waited for the call. Finally, in early December, the promotions were announced.
Among those promoted was Kenneth Boss, one of the four officers who fired 41 shots at Amadou Diallo, an unarmed
Guinean immigrant, in 1999, hitting him 19 times and killing him. But Raymond’s name wasn’t on the list.
On Dec. 10, a sergeant from the employee-management division called Raymond:
He hadn’t been promoted.
According to the sergeant, the executives would revisit the decision in six months.
In January, the city’s legal department filed a motion asking a judge to dismiss the plaintiffs’ charge that the department
is violating the quota ban, along with several other claims. A judge is expected to rule on this in the next two months.
If the case, Raymond v. City of New York, proceeds, his recordings will most likely be entered into evidence.
The whole proceeding could take years. But Raymond says that he will not stop pressing, even if it means
trying to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court. He claims he will never settle unless the department changes its practices.
‘‘There’s no amount they could pay me to make me stop fighting,’’ he said.
‘‘An officer who hides in a room, peeking through a hole in a vent, is more supervisor material than me.’’
He shook his head. ‘‘This is the system,’’ he said, ‘‘and it needs to change.’’
is an attempt to change the daily practices of the New York Police Department. He claims these tactics contradict the department’s
rhetoric about the arrival of a new era of fairer, smarter policing. In August 2015, Raymond joined 11 other police officers in filing a
class-action suit on behalf of minority officers throughout the force. The suit centers on what they claim is one of the fundamental
policies of the New York Police Department: requiring officers to meet fixed numerical goals for arrests and court summonses each month.
In Raymond’s mind, quota-based policing lies at the root of almost everything racially discriminatory about policing in New York.
Yet the department has repeatedly told the public that quotas don’t exist.
Since January 2014, the start of the two-year period during which Raymond made most of his recordings, the department has been led
by Police Commissioner William Bratton, who has presided over a decline in summonses and arrests even as crime levels have remained historically low.
He has revamped the department’s training strategy and has introduced a new program that encourages officers to spend more time getting to know
the people who live and work in the neighborhoods they patrol.
www.nytimes.com/2016/02/21/magazine/a-black-police-officers-fight-against-the-nypd.html
Raymond didn’t hide on the job. At the academy, he says, future officers were trained to remain ‘‘present and visible’’ while working in uniform,
partly so passengers could find a police officer when they needed one. On Oct. 8, 2015, for example, a group of teenage girls approached
Raymond at the Pennsylvania Avenue stop in Brooklyn and pointed out a man who had been following them. Had Raymond been hiding, he says,
they might never have found him. Raymond stopped the man, asked him some questions and ultimately arrested him for stalking.
‘‘He does these honorable things,’’ said Willie Lucas, one of the other black officers who worked in Raymond’s district.
‘‘The first time I worked with him, we were doing patrol out in the East New York area. There was a mother, she may have been a teenager,
and she was in some kind of distress, crying and really upset. Her baby may have been around 3 or 4 months old. I remember him going to talk
to her and help her out. He was willing to ride with her to the Bronx, all the way out of his jurisdiction.’’
Raymond realized that his supervisors didn’t approve of his approach. Some of them came right out and told him he was dragging down
the district’s overall arrest rate, and said they had been taking heat from their own bosses as a result. In the summer of 2010, a commander
stuck him with the weekend shift at Coney Island, the sort of unwanted job that cops call a ‘‘punitive post.’’ Other undesirable assignments followed:
sitting around with psychotic prisoners in psychiatric emergency rooms, standing at ‘‘fixed posts’’ on specific parts of subway platforms with orders not to move,
staring at video feeds of the tunnels from the confines of an airless booth called ‘‘the box.’’ As the pressures intensified over the next few years,
Raymond decided he needed to do something to protect himself — even though it could also put him at greater risk. Convinced that his supervisors
were punishing him unlawfully, and fearing for his reputation, he started to record his conversations.
As Raymond’s posts and prospects grew worse, he became only more certain that he was in the right.
Even as he handed out fewer summonses and made fewer arrests, few serious crimes were reported in
the areas he patrolled, he says. He believed that if he could get out from under the lower-level supervisors,
at least some officials at the highest levels of the department would recognize that he was the right kind of officer for New York.
He decided to try for a promotion. In December 2012, he began studying for the exam given to aspiring sergeants. The results of the test,
which he took in September 2013, could hardly have been more promising. Out of about 6,000 test takers, just 932 passed, and Raymond placed eighth.
‘‘Everything I do points to a job well done,’’ he said. Any week now, he expected the administration to begin promoting officers from his class.
Through October and November, he waited for the call. Finally, in early December, the promotions were announced.
Among those promoted was Kenneth Boss, one of the four officers who fired 41 shots at Amadou Diallo, an unarmed
Guinean immigrant, in 1999, hitting him 19 times and killing him. But Raymond’s name wasn’t on the list.
On Dec. 10, a sergeant from the employee-management division called Raymond:
He hadn’t been promoted.
According to the sergeant, the executives would revisit the decision in six months.
In January, the city’s legal department filed a motion asking a judge to dismiss the plaintiffs’ charge that the department
is violating the quota ban, along with several other claims. A judge is expected to rule on this in the next two months.
If the case, Raymond v. City of New York, proceeds, his recordings will most likely be entered into evidence.
The whole proceeding could take years. But Raymond says that he will not stop pressing, even if it means
trying to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court. He claims he will never settle unless the department changes its practices.
‘‘There’s no amount they could pay me to make me stop fighting,’’ he said.
‘‘An officer who hides in a room, peeking through a hole in a vent, is more supervisor material than me.’’
He shook his head. ‘‘This is the system,’’ he said, ‘‘and it needs to change.’’