EXCLUSIVE: Black NYPD highway cop claims racism, ticket quotas on road patrol
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, September 14, 2015, 2:30 AM
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HANDOUTDana Harge filed federal complaint against NYPD Highway Division.
A black cop is blowing the whistle on the NYPD Highway Division, alleging "racism is routine" in the elite unit and there is a quota to write 70 summonses per month, the Daily News has learned.
"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," Officer Dana Harge, 40, charges in his bombshell federal complaint.
"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 filed the discrimination complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last month and also filed a complaint with the NYPD's Office of Equal Employment Opportunity in May.
An NYPD spokesman confirmed the complaint is currently under investigation and did not comment further on the cop's allegations.
Harge has been assigned to Highway Unit No. 3 in Queens since 2008, after he graduated first in his motorcycle class, and describes his job performance as "stellar." Harge contends he has made more than 300 arrests for DWI and was honored by Mothers Against Drunk Drivers in 2013 for making the most drunk driving arrests of any NYPD highway cop that year.
As a result, Harge was recommended for promotion to detective. But a higher-up in the highway unit put the kibosh on the paperwork, which "mysteriously disappeared," although there is a log number for the recommendation, according to the complaint.
"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 charges in the complaint.
The complaint depicts the highway unit as an nearly all-white command. There are only two black cops in Highway 3, according to the complaint, and citywide the Highway Unit is only 4% black.
"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 News.
Harge's allegations of discrimination by white superiors include:
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