Officers' Groups Accuse Police Dept. of Bias

The New York Police Department is discriminating against officers who were once part of a discrimination lawsuit against it, two advocacy groups said yesterday.

At issue is the department's Central Personnel Index, a summary of each officer's disciplinary history, awards, educational background, and previous commands. Last week, several officers who were involved in the National Latino Officers Association discrimination lawsuit, which the city settled in 2004 for $26.8 million, found that their records also listed their participation in the lawsuit.

"This information serves no other purpose than to destroy an officer's career," an officer who found the information in his records, Emmanuel Bowser, said at a press conference in front of One Police Plaza. "We have done nothing wrong other than to stand up for our rights, yet we are blacklisted as if we are criminals."

The department's policy on the management of internal police records is not part of the public record, a police spokesman, Assistant Chief Michael Collins, said.

An attorney representing Officer Bowser, Norman Siegel, said including participation in the lawsuit in officers' records was "constitutionally suspect and extremely bad policy."

Under the heading "Background," a copy of Officer Bowser's Central Personnel Index shown to The New York Sun contained an entry that read, "LOA Lawsuit."

In September 1999, the National Latino Officers Association filed a lawsuit against the police department which alleged that officials created a hostile environment for minority officers and doled out discriminatory punishment. A settlement was reached in 2004, when the city's law department agreed to pay officers awards ranging from several thousand to several hundred thousand dollars depending on their claims.

Of 1,200 claims, 576 officers were given awards, according to published accounts. The settlement also stipulated a 27-month monitoring period during which the court retains jurisdiction over the case.

Last month, just four weeks before the end of the monitoring period, the National Latino Officers Association filed a contempt of court charge against the NYPD, alleging that the department had violated the settlement by retaliating against members of the lawsuit, the association's executive chairman, Anthony Miranda, said.

"This information is clearly an example of contempt," Mr. Miranda said. "This activity needs to be stopped completely."

Chief Collins said, "It's impossible to comment on a lawsuit when we haven't seen the particulars."

The other group speaking out against the police department's alleged practice yesterday was 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, an outspoken group of current and former police officers.

Officer Bowser and eight other officers who work in the police department's Transit District 4, located at 14th Street, filed another lawsuit in 2005 claiming that supervisors retaliated against them for their involvement in the National Latino Association lawsuit and for filing claims with the NYPD's Equal Opportunity Center by refusing their requests for promotions, assignments, and overtime.

That lawsuit, Robinson v. The City of New York, is moving through federal court in the Southern District of New York.