Two high-ranking NYPD supervisors are accused of treating African-American suspects “like animals,” according to an explosive new report in today’s New York Daily News.
The allegations came out as part of a federal discrimination lawsuit filed by Detective Debra Lawson. Lawson filed the suit saying that minority members of her unit were passed over for good assignments and promotions.
As part of her suit, an unnamed detective who is now retired testified that while Captain James Coan and Lt. Daniel Davin ran an elite anti-gun unit in Brooklyn, they both frequently made offensive remarks.
Davin would frequently use the N-word to describe black suspects and even other black cops.
“Capt. Coan would tell the field team . . . ‘They are f—–g animals. You make sure if you have to shoot, you shoot them in the head. That way there’s one story,’ ” said the retired detective, who was identified only as Undercover 7988 in the deposition.
Coan would make his racist speech before every time police in his unit executed a search warrant in Brownsville, Bedford-Stuyvesant and East New York, the police officer said.
“They didn’t care if it was kids in there, they didn’t care if it was women in there, naked women,” the detective said. “. . . They treated them as if they had no rights whatsoever. It was disgusting.”
Another detective, Al Hawkins, said he once walked into an apartment where Davin was instructing white police officers, “If you have to shoot a n—-r, do what you gotta do.”
By contrast, the police in the suit said white suspects on Staten Island were handled with respect.
This is not the first time a complaint alleging racism has been filed against Davin, either.
Before he retired, the unnamed detective had also filed a complaint alleging discrimination against Davin. Davin was “reinstructed” about his offensive comments in 2010, according to the Daily News.
