2nd cop sues precinct
Black Latina rips ‘racist’ bullies after Asian partner did
A second detective at Brooklyn’s 66th Precinct stationhouse is claiming that its detective squad is ruled by a culture of racist mocking that was aimed at her to thwart her promotion and the commanding officer did nothing to stop it.
Ileen Estevez, a black and Hispanic woman who joined the NYPD in 2006 and was promoted to detective last year, alleged in a May 9 civil rights complaint that she experienced racist and sexist treatment by the same 66th Precinct detectives accused of bullying her former partner, Detective Michael Moy, who is now on modified duty without his gun or badge.
The Daily News reported in April that Moy, 49, a Chinese-American and 24-year veteran of the precinct, had filed a civil rights complaint accusing detectives on the squad of using racist language to bully fellow detectives and slur crime victims, smoking in the stationhouse, playing PlayStation while earning overtime, and becoming physical when defied.
Moy was put on modified duty after tussling with one of the detectives. And he told The News the squad’s commanding officer looked the other way.
“In short, the racist/sexists at the 66th wanted me out, they wanted me to not be promoted, they made it difficult for me to do my job,” Estevez wrote in her Title VII filing with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Named in Estevez’s filing are two white detectives, James Dawson and Anthony Carreira, and a white civilian NYPD employee, Stefanie Basabe, who does administrative tasks for the squad. They were also named in Moy’s complaint. Dawson was appointed to the NYPD in 1994, and Carreira has been a cop since 2005. Basabe started working for the NYPD in 2013.
Estevez, still a member of the squad, claims the two detectives who mocked Moy’s Chinese accent targeted her by speaking in an “exaggerated ‘Ghetto’ ” accent. And just as Moy claimed in his Title VII filing, Estevez claims Carreira played YouTube clips to mock people racially. She said he would play a clip of a woman speaking with a “ghetto” accent or the “Fat Albert” theme song when she entered the office.
The 66th Precinct includes sections of Borough Park and Sunset Park, and serves Asian, Jewish and Latino populations. The stationhouse is at 5822 16th Ave.
“Dawson frequently asks Carreira to play the sound bites on Carreira’s computer and he always complies,” Estevez wrote in her filing, which was seen by The News. “Dawson never seems to play them on his own computer. He just gets Carreira to do his bidding, as if he knows the computers which play these inappropriate sound bites can be traced to the person who uses them.”
She claims to have recordings of the clips being played, and says they were intended to demean fellow detectives, victims of crimes, and even the precinct’s commanding officer, Deputy Inspector David Wall, who is black. Recordings were not made available to The News.
Squad commander Sgt. Gary Caporale, Basabe, Dawson and Carreira did not respond to requests for comment. Detectives’ Endowment Association President Michael Palladino did not reply to a request for comment and an attempt to reach Wall was unsuccessful.
In her filing, Estevez echoed a claim made by Moy that precinct detectives frequently made insulting statements about gay people, black people, Latinos, Asians, Jews and Muslims, and that the squad’s racist culture affects its treatment of minority victims of crimes.
As an example, Estevez claims that during an interview she was conducting with a Mexican robbery victim, Basabe played a clip of a Mexican “Dora the Explorer” character reciting ABC’s in English while the man sat 4 feet away.
“He stated to me in Spanish that situations like this is why members of his community did not trust the police and did not feel comfortable reporting to or asking for help from them,” she wrote. “It is not an exaggeration to say these acts make the communities I police less safe.”
Estevez declined through her attorney Fred Lichtmacher to be interviewed.
Lichtmacher, who also represents Moy, told The News, “It is becoming increasingly apparent that there is a pattern in the NYPD to protect Caucasian cops who either don’t do their job or don’t do their job well at the expense of cops who work hard and make us all safer.
“This pattern shows a particular tendency for the NYPD internally to go after minority officers, particularly outstanding officers who are actually doing their work while a lot of Caucasian cops are allowed to do next to nothing and collect not only their pay but overtime. And they seem to always be protected, particularly when the people complaining about them are minority officers.”
Moy told The News in April that racist bullying within the stationhouse pervades the way detectives treat minorities. “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.”
Dawson and Carreira are on a squad unit called “Team 2.” According to Moy’s complaint, four detectives were assigned to Team 2, while two other teams each had two or three detectives.
Estevez claims Dawson and others from “Team 2” frequently cut corners in their work while she went by the book. Yet, she said, Caporale criticized her performance.
“I have reviewed Dawson’s files which are also accessible to the [commanding officer], and on a regular basis he skips numerous important investigatory steps and is not subjected to discipline for these serious omissions whereas I seem to be,” she said in the filing.
Estevez claims she is only allowed overtime when she makes an arrest, but male detectives in the squad “frequently take overtime, at the taxpayers’ expense, to play PlayStation.”
Estevez started as a police officer at Transit District 2. In January 2017 she was assigned to the 66th Precinct as an investigator, an “investigatory path” toward being promoted to detective, she said.
She claims the Team 2 detectives tried to block this path. She said to hinder her efforts they played the office’s TV loud while she tried to work, continually played YouTube clips she found offensive, locked her out of the office while they played video games, and refused to accompany her on dangerous assignments.