Detectives on a squad in a Brooklyn precinct use racist language to bully fellow detectives and slur crime victims, smoke in the stationhouse, and play PlayStation while earning overtime, and they’ve become physical when defied, another detective who worked in that unit claims in a civil rights filing.
A pair of detectives assigned to the unit at the 66th Precinct, which covers heavily Jewish Borough Park and Brooklyn’s Chinatown, have closed ranks to enforce their “frat house” culture, according to the complaint filed Wednesday by Detective Michael Moy, 49, a Chinese-American and 24-year veteran of the precinct who is on modified duty after tussling with one of the detectives. And, Moy says, the commanding officer of the squad has looked the other way.
“It’s like a frat house. That’s exactly what it is,” Moy told The News in an interview at the office of his lawyer, Fred Lichtmacher. “If you’re new and come in there, they set the pecking order, like who’s in control.”
Detectives named in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Title VII filing include Anthony Carreira, appointed to the NYPD in 2005, and James Dawson, a cop since 1994.
According to the document, a favorite activity of the detectives is to play YouTube clips on NYPD computers to mock racial minorities. To mock him, Moy said, Carreira “hundreds of times” played a YouTube clip of a comedian doing a Chinese accent. Moy said his commanding officer, Sgt. Gary Caporale, whose door is often open to the rest of the detective squad office, was present at least once when Carreira played the clip.
“[Caporale] was standing right next to [Carreira], and he just went on talking about other cases. He didn’t put a stop to it,” said Moy. Caporale joined the NYPD in 2001.
Two images posted in the squad room depicted Moy as Bruce Lee. A caption scrawled on one read, “Moy. When he was human.” On the other, a word bubble coming from the mouth of a cartoon of Lee contained an expletive along with the message, “I take day off!” A third image carried a photo Moy under the word “Heartless” and “kids got nothing for Christmas” beneath it. Moy said he is not Christian and does not celebrate Christmas. Moy’s attorney provided copies of the images.
Even the precinct commander, Deputy Inspector David Wall, was a target, Moy claims. According to Moy, after Wall, an African-American, walked out of the squad office, Carreira played a clip of Fat Albert saying his “hey, hey, hey!” catchphrase. An attempt to reach Wall for comment was unsuccessful.
Few minority groups have escaped the bigoted invective of those detectives, who are on a unit within the squad called “Team 2,” Moy claims. He said he has witnessed them mocking Jews, Muslims, Indians, Mexicans, and gay people, along with African-Americans and Chinese. According to Moy’s complaint, four detectives were assigned to Team 2, while two other teams each had two or three detectives.
Dawson referred to Jews as “filthy Jews,” “dirty Jews,” and “beards,” Moy said. His complaint claims Dawson and Carreira called Muslim detectives “Taliban” and frequently played a YouTube video of Taliban chanting.
Asked if the racist bullying within the stationhouse pervades the way detectives treat minorities they are trusted to serve and protect, Moy told The News, “Of course.”
“We call it s—canning cases,” he said. “They don’t get the same quality of investigation as other people. Especially the Chinese because they don’t speak English, and [detectives] can close the case easily.”
Carreira and Dawson frequently played PlayStation in the squad office, according to Moy’s complaint, which said the door would be locked so the players might hide their toys before senior officers could enter.
He told The News he often worked overtime and those detectives did, too. Publicly available records show Dawson averaged about 31 hours of overtime a month over the past five fiscal years and Carreira averaged about 33 hours of overtime a month since mid-2016. Fiscal years run from the middle of the year, so data was available up to mid-2018.
They also blasted the TV in the office, turning up the volume especially loud whenever President Trump was on the screen, and got physical to enforce the volume, Moy said.
The Daily News heard audio recordings that Moy said he made surreptitiously, which he claimed was Carreira playing the Fat Albert clip, Dawson referring to a black member of a police lineup as “Buckwheat,” and Dawson tangling with Moy in a March 22 altercation that got Moy stripped of his shield and gun and placed on modified duty.
In a recording Moy said he made of the March 22 incident, Moy and his partner complain about the volume of the TV, and Moy turns it off. Minutes later, a door seems to slam, and a man — Moy says it’s Dawson — argues with Moy about the TV. That man says, “You saw that, right? He grabbed my arm!”
Moy claims Dawson turned the TV back on and when Moy again turned it off Dawson shoved his right triceps against Moy’s face as Dawson lunged for the TV’s power button. Moy pushed his arm away. “Your days are over, bro,” says the voice purported to be Dawson. “Your days are over, bud.”
Five days later, after being stripped of his gun following an administrative hearing, Moy was sent to mandatory counseling, and the next day, to a psychiatrist. Moy said he wants to know why he was modified and Dawson was not.
NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Public Information Phillip Walzak told The News, “NYPD takes such allegations seriously and does not tolerate discrimination of any kind. Once received, the complaint will be thoroughly investigated and appropriate action will be taken.”
Moy is currently assigned to Central Booking and said he fears for his safety now that he must walk around unarmed, possibly among people he previously arrested. “I went from making robbery arrests and solving burglaries to guarding prisoners,” he said.
Born in Brooklyn to immigrants from China and Hong Kong, Moy said the culture at the 66th Precinct detective squad got bad about seven years ago, but he said it worsened after Carreira joined it about six years ago and worse still since Caporale became head of the squad about three years ago. Dawson joined the squad around 2002.
Reached by phone, Caporale told The News, “No comment, and don’t call my phone again and don’t come by my house.” Dawson and Carreira did not respond to requests for comment.
Moy said he and other minority detectives mostly kept their heads down as they tried to work within the “frat house” environment. Once, though, Moy said he reported to the Chief of Detectives Investigation Unit that he had been told by a detective that another detective falsely claimed on a report that he had spoken to a crime victim. He said he was told his report would go to Internal Affairs.
Moy said the bullying has exacerbated poor sleep patterns he said he still suffers as a result of his work at Ground Zero after 9/11. But, Moy said, he has maintained a strong performance record that includes 400 arrests. His file includes a letter from former Commissioner Howard Safir written in 2000, praising him for a successful bribery sting of a man who had offered him money and women if Moy would tip him off to prostitution raids.
He said he has been passed over for promotion, while at least five white male detectives in the 66th Precinct with equal or lesser records have been promoted. He said Caporale has denied requests for steadier shift assignments, which Moy claims other commanding officers approved in the past for several white 66th Precinct detectives with similar seniority. Moy said he’s been a detective since 2005.
Moy said he’s had opportunities to escape the 66th Precinct squad, housed in the stationhouse at 5822 16th Ave. “I was offered many [other NYPD] positions, but I turned them down because I like working in Chinatown. I like helping the community,” he said.
“This complaint should help not only me,” Moy said in his filing, “but hopefully it has a positive effect for the Chinese and other citizens of the 66th Precinct, who are subject to having some lazy, bigoted, dishonest, incompetent, and quite frankly dangerous police supposedly protecting their interests.”
“I love the NYPD,” Moy said. “The NYPD gave me everything I have right now. It’s just a handful of people, unfortunately, in my office.”
Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives’ Endowment Association, told The News, “We are experiencing some issues in the 66 squad right now, however since everyone involved is a detective the union will decline comment at this time.”
Warner Frey, a retired NYPD captain who commanded the Detective Bureau Investigations Unit, which investigated claims of detective misconduct, told The News. “The allegations made by Detective Moy, if true, reveal catastrophic failures in professional standards and executive oversight.
“Given the failures of management controls revealed last year by the series of Daily News articles, this situation is another example of the lack of transparency within the Department discipline system and the inability of the Department to police itself,” Frey said.
With Graham Rayman
