‘Racism is routine’ says NYPD officer

A veteran New York City cop claimed “racism is routine” in the NYPD, according to a published report.

NYPD Officer Dana Harge, 40, charged filed a discrimination complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission stating that “based on the very low number of African-Americans who are in Highway and how badly I have been treated, it is not hard for me to conclude Highway is racist,” according to the New York Daily News.

Harge filed the discrimination complaint last month and also filed a complaint with the NYPD’s Office of Equal Employment Opportunity in May, the paper reported.

“Many of the actions taken against me were motivated by racism and were intended to prevent me from making my quota and would have resulted in the desired end of an involuntary transfer,” he stated in the complaint.

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An NYPD spokesman confirmed the complaint is currently under investigation and did not comment further on the allegations.

Harge, who is African-American, has been assigned to Highway Unit No. 3 in Queens since 2008, after he graduated first in his motorcycle class, and he describes his job performance as “stellar,” the News wrote.

The complaint depicts the Highway unit as a nearly all-white command. There are only two black cops in Highway 3, according to the complaint, and citywide the Highway Unit is only 4 percent black, according to the News.

“If the NYPD doesn’t know how to treat blacks in their own ranks, I don’t see how they ever going to improve relations with the black community,” Harge’s lawyer Fred Lichtmacher told the paper.

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Harge’s allegations of discrimination by white superiors include having been written up for minor violations nine or more times in the past 15 months, removal from his post in south Queens because it has a predominantly black population, and black officers being shunned from the public spotlight in favor of white cops.

“Highway did not want an African-American officer appearing as the ‘face’ of Highway in the media,” the complaint, cited in the News, alleges.