Recruits accuse DEA of racism at training center
At the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Training Academy in Virginia last year, an instructor on the firing range called out a name that was shared by two trainees, one Black and one white. When both responded, the white instructor clarified, “I meant the monkey.”
That behavior, as alleged in an internal complaint, didn’t stop there. The instructor also was accused of going on the loudspeaker in the tower of the outdoor firing range to taunt Black trainees by making “monkey noises.”
“We were like, ‘ It’s 2019. That shouldn’t even be a thing that we’re dealing with,’ ” said Derek Moise, who did not hear the noises himself but recalled the discomfort they caused his fellow Black trainees who did. “Everybody knows what those sounds and noises stand for.”
As the DEA continues a decadeslong struggle to diversify its ranks, it has received a string of recent complaints describing a culture of racial discrimination at its Quantico academy in which minorities are singled out, derided with insults and consistently held to a higher standard than their white counterparts, according to interviews with former recruits and law enforcement officials and records obtained by the Associated Press.
In one case, a Black recruit was told his skin color made him a surefire candidate for undercover work. In another, a Latino woman, chatting in Spanish with a fellow trainee, was admonished to “speak English, you are in the United States.” At least two of the complaints prompted internal DEA investigations, one of which remains ongoing.
Like other federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, the DEA has struggled to fill its ranks with minorities. Of the agency’s 4,400 special agents, just 8% are Black and 10% are Latino.
“DEA takes allegations of misconduct very seriously and will not tolerate discriminatory behavior of any kind,” the agency said in a statement. “DEA is committed to recruiting, retaining and promoting a workforce that reflects the diversity of our country.”
Former recruits who spoke to AP said racism permeated their time at the academy from their first day of basic training, alleging exceptions were routinely made for underperforming white trainees while Blacks were held to an appreciably higher standard.
“They weren’t going to let me graduate and become an agent no matter what,” said Theo Brown, a Black recruit from Marietta, Ga., who contends he was unfairly dismissed in early 2018.