Top Cop Orders the Targeting of Blacks and Latinos, NYPD Officers Say

Retired NYPD officers and one active, on-duty cop, all of them are Latinos and Hispanics, are suing a high ranking official after they were ordered to target blacks and Hispanics for minor subway offenses.

Deputy Inspector Constantin Tsachas was alleged to have ordered the charges to meet arrest quotas. Moreover, between 2011 and 2015 the plaintiffs said that they were told by the officer to ignore whites and Asians for the same minor violations.

In a published report by Yahoo News, Tsachas ordered to think of Asians and whites as a soft target and instead, they should focus themselves on arresting more blacks and Latinos for minor offenses. This allegation is part of the lawsuit filed against the New York Police Department Deputy Inspector Constantin Tsachas, former NYPD captain.

The lawsuit filed entails the arrest of more blacks and Hispanics between the period of 2011 and 2015 for minor violations. The NYPD former captain was the in-charge of 100 officers who patrolled 100 subway stations in Brooklyn.

Moreover, despite the lawsuit filed against Tsachas he is now the second-in-command of policing the subways in Brooklyn since he has been promoted as an inspector. Meanwhile, the union of police who support Tsachas denied the allegations filed by six Blacks and Hispanic officers.

The city also released a statement saying that the claim of discrimination has not been substantiated and found it to be meritless. Meanwhile, they said that they will still defend the baseless accusations.

Former NYPD Commissioner William Bratton who promoted Tsachas rejected the claims of the discrimination filed by Blacks and Hispanics. It can be remembered that three years ago, Bratton said that he is giving his full support to Tsachas and the officer has the requisite skills that are highly commendable.

Christopher LaForce, one of the petitioners, said that he decided to retire in 2015 because he got tired hunting Blacks and Hispanics just to hit the quota. He also added that one of the instructions is to enforce the order of Tsachas depending on the neighborhood they were patrolling.

LaForce was sworn in his affidavit that "Tsachas would get angry if you tried to patrol subway stations in predominately white or Asian neighborhoods," Aaron Diaz, a retired officer who also filed the lawsuit said, that he was told by Tsachas to write more blacks and Hispanics. In his sworn affidavit he said that Tsachas reprimanded him on one occasion when he stopped Asians for the same evasion they commit as with blacks and Hispanics. And at that time, Diaz was assigned to the N Line which is heavily populated by Asians.

Other officers also swore in their affidavit that they were told to make up reasons why they stopped black men especially those with tattoos. Maximilien said in his sworn statement that: "We were taught by Tsachas' closest lieutenants that we could not give the summons to what they called ... 'soft targets'" and instead they were told to target those blacks with tattoos that he wants in jail.

Corey Gable, a police union official, who sworn deposition in June also cite statements in the lawsuit filed. Officer Gable said that he asked Tsachas to clarify what he meant by soft targets.

Tsachas start to joined the NYPD in 2001 and at that time he was assigned to patrol public housing developments in Harlem. In 2011 he was tasked to post command in Brooklyn's District 34 until 2015.