An NYPD undercover cop and former Marine says his Hispanic, Asian, and Black colleagues refused during violent drug buys to provide him with backup because he is white, forcing him to quit the force rather than continue to put his life “in jeopardy.”
According to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Manhattan Supreme Court, New York Police Department Detective John Olsen claims the cops of color he worked with simply stood by on two occasions in 2019 as he was attacked during drug busts.
I genuinely felt like my life was in jeopardy if I continued,” the 34-year-old detective told the New York Post. “They did everything in their power to make it miserable for me.”
White undercover NYC detective says he was targeted by colleagues for his race https://t.co/buY7qc8hRD pic.twitter.com/xtOtbE8zhE
— New York Post Metro (@nypmetro) June 24, 2023
Olsen began his career with the NYPD as a South Bronx patrolman in January 2015.
After being selected to join the specialized Anti-Crime Unit, he was transferred in February 2019 to the Northern Manhattan Detective Bureau to serve as an undercover officer.
There, Olsen said, he was the lone white officer training to go undercover.
“A White undercover,” one senior detective allegedly said, “this will be fun.”
Just a few months on the job, Olson was involved in a Harlem drug buy. According to the filing, he was surrounded and punched in the face, right in front of a car loaded with detectives.
While his colleagues snapped photos of the attack, they declined to intervene rather than risk “being tainted by association with a white undercover,” Olson alleges in the lawsuit.
“They watched [the attacker] walk back inside the housing projects,” Olsen said. “It was totally against our rules for narcotics to let that go.”
According to Olsen, he was routinely ghosted by his “ghost,” the term for the nearby officer that is meant to race to the aid of an endangered undercover detective.
“Ghosts” are required companions for officers who are working undercover.
“The second an undercover’s life is in danger or someone gets assaulted, the field team is supposed to move in immediately to apprehend the person and rescue the officer,” Olsen explained.
According to the court filing, after the Harlem attack, the lead detective told Olsen, “Sorry kid, I’m not doing anything, this isn’t 1992.”
It was an apparent reference to the 1992 beating of Rodney King, a black man, at the hands of Los Angeles police officers. The subsequent acquittal of the officers sparked deadly riots in L.A. and across the nation.
Olsen once again ran into trouble in July 2019 when a Hamilton Heights drug dealer pulled a knife on him.
Olsen chased and subdued the suspect, tearing his labrum and rotator cuff in the process. The injuries sidelined him until January 2020.
Normally, an officer involved in an incident such as the one in Hamilton Heights would be transferred to a different area of the city, but Olsen’s superiors, angry over his failure to bust more drug dealers, kept him where he was.
When Olsen caught COVID-19 in September, his bosses were furious and transferred him from northwest Manhattan to East Harlem and the Upper East Side, The Post reports.
When two Hispanic officers and one Asian cop caught COVID and called in sick, Olsen said, they were not transferred.
Additionally, his fellow officers were given more chances to receive overtime. His bosses, Olsen said, were committed to making “his life as uncomfortable as possible.”
One superior allegedly told the detective, “I’m going to make your life very miserable, I’m going to be on top of you… everything you do I’m going to be looking for mistakes.”
“And I don’t know why,” Olsen added, “but at the end, he said, ‘It’s because you’re a military guy.'”
“I did not expect that at all,” Olsen said. “He said it was because I was a military guy, but I think it was also because I was a white undercover and they were trying to get rid of me.”
Though he was still 13 years shy of receiving a full NYPD pension, Olsen resigned from the force in May 2022.
“I fought in Afghanistan,” he said. “I was in special ops in the South Bronx, I was an undercover in Narcotics in Harlem, but I think that was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life — having the whole NYPD weaponized against me.”
The former detective is suing New York City for discrimination based on his race and his prior military service.
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.