SGT. RIPS BLUE BIAS
Battling NYPD to the bitter end
SGT. CYRESS SMITH has had a career to be proud of, serving 10 years with the NYPD’s Risk Management Bureau, where he taught officers how to root out corruption and improve the performance of subpar cops.
But when Smith, who is black, complained that white colleagues were given superior evaluations, he said the department turned on him.
He suddenly found himself on mail duty, a job typically reserved for younger cops. Then he said the department ignored his 9/11-related asthma by transferring him, against his doctor’s advice, to commands with unhealthy working conditions.
Last month, Smith was transferred again, this time to the Viper Unit, which monitors surveillance cameras in housing projects and is typically staffed with cops under investigation.
He considers the transfer a slap in the face and says he can’t in good conscience recommend the NYPD as a career.
“It’s a story of racism, inequality and abuse,” said Smith, 50. “My daughter recently showed interest in the Police Department, and I’m saying ‘No way — as your father, I’d like you to pursue other options.’
“If they’re treating me badly, what stories do I have to tell my daughter?”
The NYPD wouldn’t answer any questions about Smith’s transfers, nor would it comment on the federal civil rights lawsuit he has filed.
“It’s difficult to appreciate the level to which they’ve gone to retaliate against him,” said Smith’s lawyer, Chukwuemeka Nwokoro. “They’re basically treating him like a rookie cop.”
The pending case, Smith acknowledged, will likely end his 20-year service, since win or lose he believes he’ll be a pariah. “My career’s over,” he said. Smith has been outspoken even before he joined the NYPD.
In 1991, he and fellow City College students helped barricade buildings, shutting down classes for a day, to protest a tuition hike.
Then, as a young officer, he was among the nearly four dozen cops — mostly Hispanic, but some black — who settled with the city for $27 million after charging in a lawsuit that minority cops were disciplined in a discriminatory way and then punished further if they spoke out.
But Smith saw more of the same in the Risk Management Bureau beginning in 2013. He had complained to supervisors about what he considered two sets of rules — one for white officers and one for minority officers, with white cops more likely to be promoted and less likely to be disciplined, regardless of merit or circumstance.
Suddenly, he said, his performance evaluations dropped, to 4.0 out of 5, then to 3.5, a mark that makes career advancement extremely difficult.
He successfully appealed one 4.0 evaluation, but he said his other appeals were then delayed — with a supervisor, Inspector John Cosgrove, telling him he should transfer, Smith said.
“I’m not going easy on you,” Smith remembers Cosgrove saying.
Cosgrove’s attitude, Smith said, filtered down to other supervisors. Eventually, Cosgrove ordered up a two-month punishment, having Smith drive each day from his office at Police Headquarters to deliver mail to other NYPD buildings, then stripping him of his training duties.
Cosgrove didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Through it all, Smith has dealt with asthma and sleep apnea, both conditions his doctor linked to time spent sifting through the rubble at the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island after the Sept. 11 terror attack.
Twice, he was denied a disability pension. In September 2016, he was transferred to the 42nd Precinct, where there was dust and soot inside the stationhouse.
Another transfer, to a dusty Queens warehouse for the Property Clerk Division, came just before his move to the Viper Unit.
“They’re trying to force me to retire,” he said. “But I’m gonna retire on my own terms.”
If they’re treating me badly, what stories do I have to tell my daughter? Sgt. Cyress Smith