A former Bronx NYPD detective is suing New York City, alleging racism, retaliation and a toxic culture inside a Manhattan narcotics unit, backed by what he says are disturbing group chat messages.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit includes screenshots from an NYPD group chat that allegedly show officers sharing a doctored image of a detective in a Ku Klux Klan hood, along with racist memes and slurs targeting immigrants, Latinos and Jewish people.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s only 1% of the evidence,\u201d said Luis Pichardo.<\/p>\n
Pichardo, 41, is a Bronx native who spent 19 years with the NYPD and made more than 1,000 arrests during his career.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went to Walton High School in the Bronx, applied to John Jay College and applied then to be a police cadet,\u201d said Pichardo.<\/p>\n
He claims that in 2025, he was passed over for a prestigious promotion and was told he was \u201ctoo old\u201d at 41 and that the unit \u201cspoke a lot of English\u201d during his interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a strong accent, as you can tell,” Pichardo said. “I\u2019ve been to trial. I\u2019ve been to grand jury.”<\/p>\n
According to the lawsuit, less experienced white detectives were selected instead, some without even interviewing.<\/p>\n
Pichardo alleges that after he complained, his overtime was cut in half, impacting his pension, and he was ostracized by colleagues. He also claims a supervisor suggested he could still get the job if he dropped his complaint.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they cut your overtime, your pension goes down right away,\u201d said Pichardo.<\/p>\n
He says the situation ultimately forced him to retire in July 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m only 41,” the former detective said. “I can be in the department until 62, but I couldn\u2019t handle it.”<\/p>\n
The lawsuit further alleges officers circulated antisemitic content, joked about the deaths of Black men at the hands of police and shared a Nazi swastika.<\/p>\n
It also cites messages referencing a coworker\u2019s Dominican flag and a text in response from his supervisor with an ICE logo and a message that said, “see if they can help.”<\/p>\n
After one of the group chat screenshots surfaced publicly, the lawsuit claims a member of the chat asked, \u201cWhy can\u2019t there be one-hour disappearing messages?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he said that, I was like, ‘Wow,’\u201d said Pichardo.<\/p>\n
Despite the fallout, Pichardo says he does not regret coming forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, a lot of police officers, detectives, they stay quiet,” said Pichardo. “This happened to me and I\u2019m going to speak up for the next generation that are trying to apply to NYPD to not have that situation in the future.”<\/p>\n
The NYPD sent News 12 the following statement: “The NYPD has zero tolerance for hate and discrimination of any kind. These allegations are deeply disturbing and are under internal investigation.”<\/p>\n
Stay with News 12 for updates as the lawsuit moves through the courts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Bronx NYPD detective is suing New York City, alleging racism, retaliation and a toxic culture inside…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-198602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}