Former NYPD Officer Sues Claiming Anti-Semitic Harassment From Co-Workers

JNS.org reported yesterday on a federal lawsuit filed last month by a former New York City Police Department officer charging that he was forced out of his position by six years of anti-Semitic comments and harassment from fellow officers.  The 26-page complaint (full text) in Attali v. City of New York, (SD NY, filed 1/21/2015), says that the abuse became particularly bad after plaintiff was assigned to the World Trade Center command in 2011.  It alleges, among other incidents, that beginning in January 2013:

Plaintiff ATTALI's co-workers, repeatedly, and without provocation, vandalized Plaintiff's locker at the WTC Command by writing hateful and abusive language and messages consisting of swastikas, newspaper clippings of pork, ham, salami and bacon advertisements, the word "DIRTY JEW" carved into an orange sticker and the following letters cut out of various newspaper headlines: "HAIL HITLER."

3rd Circuit Hears Arguments In Muslim Challenge To NYPD Surveillance

Yesterday the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in Hassan v. City of New York. (Audio of full oral arguments.)  The case involves a constitutional challenge to the New York City Police Department's surveillance of the Muslim community in New Jersey following 9/11. The district court had dismissed the case both for lack of standing and failure to show intentional discrimination. (See prior posting.)  NorthJersey.com reports on the case.

NYPD Asks Arrested Muslims To Become Anti-Terrorism Informants

In a front page article, today's New York Times reports that a special New York Police Department detective squad-- the Citywide Debriefing Team-- is regularly recruiting Muslims arrested on minor charges to become informants for the Department's anti-terrorism Intelligence Division. The Times describes the experience of several men:

Waiting in a New York station house cell or a lockup facility, expecting to be arraigned, only to be pulled aside and questioned by detectives. The queries were not about the charges against them, but about where they went to mosque and what their prayer habits were. Eventually, the detectives got to the point: Would they work for the police, eavesdropping in Muslim cafes and restaurants, or in mosques?

These revelations come less than a month after a lawsuit was filed in New York claiming that the FBI uses the No Fly List to coerce American Muslims to become informants. (See prior posting.)

NYPD Ends Muslim Neighborhood Surveillance Unit

The New York Times yesterday reported that the New York Police Department is dropping its controversial Demographics Unit that has sent plainclothes detectives into Muslim neighborhoods to secretly monitor individuals. The reassignment of detectives that has inactivated the Unit appears to be part of new Police Commissioner William Bratton's attempt to build better relations with minority communities.

Court Dismisses Challenge To NYPD's Surveillance of Muslims

In Hassan v. City of New York, (D NJ, Feb. 20, 2014), a New Jersey federal district court dismissed a constitutional challenge to the New York City Police Department's surveillance of the Muslim community in New Jersey following 9/11. Plaintiffs claimed that the surveillance was motivated solely by animus against Muslims. The court concluded first that plaintiffs lack standing because they did not allege a sufficient injury from the surveillance. The alleged injury to reputations and to the religious functioning of various organizations was caused by the AP's unauthorized release of documents about the program, not by the NYPD's surveillance.  The court also concluded that plaintiffs failed to show intentional discrimination:

Plaintiffs in this case have not alleged facts from which it can be plausibly inferred that they were targeted solely because of their religion. The more likely explanation for the surveillance was a desire to locate budding terrorist conspiracies. The most obvious reason for so concluding is that surveillance of the Muslim community began just after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The Center for Constitutional Rights issued a press release reacting to the decision. AP reports on the decision.

Court Passes On Discovery Requests In Case Challenging NYPD's Surveillance Of Muslims

In Raza v. City of New York, (ED NY, Nov. 22, 2013), a New York federal district court ruled on challenged discovery requests in a lawsuit by 3 individuals, 2 mosques and a non-profit who claim that the NYPD engaged in unconstitutional surveillance and investigation of Muslim leaders, organizations, businesses and mosques. (See prior posting.)  The court permitted discovery of documents specifically concerning plaintiffs, and information regarding the structure of the NYPD Intelligence Division. It also permitted

discovery regarding any NYPD policy or program involving the investigation of Muslims as a group based, in whole or part, on their religion. Without this discovery, Plaintiffs would be preemptively and irreparably prohibited from proving that Defendants’ alleged discriminatory intent was a motivating factor in the investigation and surveillance of Plaintiffs.

However the court denied plaintiffs' request for information on all NYPD investigations and surveillance of Muslims (whether or not based on their religion) and all investigations and surveillance of non-Muslims on the basis of their religious beliefs or practices. The court concluded that "these requests are, at best, of limited probative value or relevance and, at the same time, impossibly burdensome." Huffington Post yesterday reported on the decision.

NYPD's Grooming Rule Violates Free Exercise Rights of Orthodox Jewish Officer

In Litzman v. New York City Police Department, (SD NY, Nov. 15, 2013), Fishel Litzman, a member of the Chabad Lubavitch Orthodox Jewish movement, was accepted into the NYPD Police Academy and sworn in as a probationary police officer. He sued when his request for a religious accommodation to allow him to wear a one-inch long beard was denied and he was fired for continuing to wear his beard. NYPD policy allowed for medical and religious exceptions to the Department's no-beard rule, but only for beards that do not exceed one millimeter in length. A New York federal district court held that while the police department had not violated Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by failing to accommodate Litzman's religious exercise, it did violate his 1st Amendment free exercise rights and the New York City Human Rights Law.

The NYPD prevailed under Title VII because it carried its burden of showing that an accommodation would create "undue hardship." The New York City Human Rights Law similarly requires accommodation, but has a definition of "undue hardship" that creates a much higher hurdle for the employer.  NYPD failed to meet that test. Analyzing plaintiff's 1st Amendment free exercise claim, the court concluded that strict scrutiny should be applied:

Here, the undisputed record demonstrates that de facto exemptions to the one-millimeter rule abound. The ... NYPD provides temporary exemptions to police officers who grow beards beyond the one-millimeter limit for special occasions, such as religious holidays, weddings, and funerals.... Defendants also admit that the NYPD has police officers with beards in excess of one-millimeter in length, not only because of formal exemptions due to undercover assignments, but also because the NYPD does not always enforce its personal appearance standards....  Because there is evidence that the NYPD exercises discretion with respect to a facially neutral rule in a discriminatory fashion, strict scrutiny is appropriate.

New York Daily News reports on the decision.