A new lawsuit claims that the NYPD let Hispanic cops languish. Former detective Joseph Rivera, who worked the auto crimes division for over ten year is suing the NYPD for only promoting a single Latino cop to detective in the unit since 1997.
Police spokesman Paul Browne counters Rivera's claims in the Daily News by pointing to the fact that a Hispanic detectives were promoted in 1997, 1998 and 2000, and that Hispanics "have been promoted to discretionary ranks in double-digit and triple-digit percentages" while the number of detectives in the department have decreased by 16%. "If the lawsuit is accurate I think it's disturbing because a large portion of our membership is Hispanic and I hope it was an oversight and not done on purpose," the president of the Detectives Endowment Association says.
Rivera claims that Latino police officers were confined to "support roles" that involved listening to targets on wiretaps that spoke Spanish. State law requires cops who work 18 months on investigative matters to be promoted to detective, which is how Rivera made rank.
