The Village Voice
s since New York Police
Department Officer Adrian Schoolcraft emerged with secretly recorded evidence
of misconduct in a Brooklyn precinct, other cops have been inspired to follow
in his footsteps, capturing their commanders pressuring them to hit illegal
quotas.
The NYPD has long denied that
it's compelled officers to reach certain figures for arrests, stop-and-frisks,
and summonses. But the recordings proved that officers faced the threat of bad
assignments, transfers, or other punishment if they didn't make their numbers.
Schoolcraft's tapes played in
dramatic fashion in the recent landmark stop-and-frisk trial, which could lead
to a federal monitor overseeing the NYPD. Two Bronx officers also made similar
recordings, as did an unnamed supervisor, who caught his bosses profanely
complaining about cops who didn't make their quotas.
Now comes patrolman Clifford
Rigaud, an 11-year veteran who secretly taped his commander in South Jamaica's
103rd Precinct pressuring him to write 15 summonses a month.
Like Schoolcraft, Rigaud claims
he was a hard-working officer. He once ran into a burning building on Hillside
Avenue to make sure the tenants were out, and earned a commendation for
intervening in an armed robbery.
Rigaud claims that when he
resisted quota pressure, his bosses began to squeeze him, using a series of
administrative rules and unwritten tactics. He was fired last week after he
filed a lawsuit and a series of complaints charging supervisors with
discrimination. To Rigaud, it looked like the ultimate retaliation.
"I tried to go through the
chain of command instead of talking to the media, because I have five children
to support, but that did not work out at all," he says. "This
department will come after you for everything they got. Schoolcraft's fear of
the NYPD is correct, and even worse than he thinks."
Rigaud's lawyer, Stephen
Drummond, says the department offered paper-thin justification to get rid of a
veteran officer. Rigaud was fired for not showing up for psychiatric evaluation
during his suspension—though officers are routinely allowed to tend to such
issues after they return to work.
The speed of his removal seemed
suspect, since Police Commissioner Ray Kelly habitually takes months, even
years, to decide the fate of cops accused of much greater offenses like fraud,
drug trafficking, or the beating of suspects. "Here again we see Rigaud
being treated differently," Drummond says.
Police spokesman Paul Browne
did not respond to repeated interview requests.
