An NYPD officer claims in a blistering new lawsuit that he was subjected to retaliation and discrimination after pleading for reassignment over domestic violence allegations.
Santio Williams, a fingerprint technician, claimed the abuse began when he requested a transfer to New York Police Department headquarters at 1 Police Plaza to avoid future interactions with his alleged abuser.
Not only was her application denied, but her police superiors instead sent her to work in a department known for abuse, harassment and micromanagement, her lawsuit says.
When her sister died in October and Williams requested bereavement leave with a death certificate, her boss “required her to return with a funeral program listing her siblings to prove it.” [Williams] is a member of the family,” her suit states, but this is not required by authorities.
“It's like a torture chamber,” Williams told the Post. “It's a retaliation case.”
In a lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court in November, she claims the daily harassment caused her extreme stress, anxiety and panic attacks, to the point that first responders were called at least twice. There is.
The lawsuit follows a similar suit filed in October by a Staten Island detective who claimed she faced daily harassment and racial discrimination at the police station after seeking accommodation as a single mother.
“The NYPD consistently ignores New York City law by retaliating against officers who request accommodations,” said attorney John Scola, who filed both recent lawsuits.
“In an alarming contradiction to its mission to prevent domestic violence, the department has refused to provide necessary accommodations to employees seeking protection from domestic abusers and retaliated against employees who have sought safety.” Scola told the Post.
An NYPD spokesperson told the Post that the city “does not tolerate discrimination in any form and is committed to a respectful work environment for our diverse workforce,” adding that the city has no further comment on the pending lawsuit. declined to comment.
Williams, who allegedly fled her physically abusive husband and moved into a domestic violence shelter last year, claimed police leaders told her there was no other place to place a fingerprint technician at this time.
However, the lawsuit alleges that several months after joining the company in spring 2023, Williams was working outside of her title as a police administrative assistant (a senior civilian position) and could have easily been reassigned as an assistant police officer. There is.
“When I became homeless, I asked for reasonable accommodation,” Williams recalls. [when]I was told that fingerprints could not be taken, so I objected. I said, “I don't even work as a fingerprint technician, so why can't I take fingerprints?”
“It didn't move them in the right direction,” she said, and Williams soon received a letter denying her request.
That same day, she was brought back to the fingerprint department and forced to return to work “as per her title,” Williams said.
“Why, for safety reasons, I couldn't stay overnight.” [NYPD’s] Does that mean you are moving me out of this area out of a duty of care towards me? ” she recalled.
When Williams was first hired by the NYPD in May 2023, he had a long career in law enforcement in his longtime hometown of London, and was “trained in counterfeiting, investigation and intelligence, behavioral profiling, and safeguarding.” “I have experience in this,” he said in the suit. .
She made sure the hiring team was aware of the responsibility of raising two children, ages 3 and 8, and asked for a daytime tour, which the department graciously accommodated.
“There were times when I was told I was overqualified,” Williams said. He recalled that he was told that the higher-ranking jobs for which he was qualified would soon be retiring, and that he only accepted a lower-level job with the title of fingerprint collector.
A month later, Williams was transferred to the Criminal Records Division at Police Plaza No. 1, where she began working as an off-duty PAA without a raise, she told the paper. According to the complaint, she also passed the PAA civil service exam with a high score.
In the months that followed, her work ethic was praised, the suit alleges.
Ms Williams said her job became a “safe haven” after she was allegedly abused by her American husband, whom she met on holiday in Jamaica. She claimed that she moved to the city in 2019 with her husband's sponsor.
Williams said the abuse started verbally, but then turned physical, and she didn't know what to do so she went to her boss.
“We were just venting about it every day until things got really bad,” Williams recalled. Her boss then told her, “No, you have to do something,” and gave her a brochure for a domestic violence shelter.
“He was so unpredictable. The only way I could imagine being safe was to stay away from him,” she claimed to the Post.
She asked for accommodations when a caseworker told her to work in a different zip code to make it harder for her husband to find her. That request will be handled by an entirely separate team, she said.
But, she claims, her denial and return to the fingerprinting office where she had worked for only a few weeks was just the beginning of the retaliation.
Williams said the office was no longer a safe haven for her, and her boss not only lacked a receptive ear, but was determined to eliminate her completely.
“Everyone was so stiff,” she told the Post, adding that her new manager wouldn't even look at her when she needed to speak.
Williams said her job meant she was rarely at her desk for most of the day, but her manager would just dump work on her desk without notifying her and leaving her in the dark. He said he dropped her and excluded her from company-wide emails about photo day. Or, she said, everyone was supposed to wear red at a coordinated event.
“Even on bring-your-children-to-work days, my request to bring my children to work was denied,” Williams said.
Williams said the harassment became more apparent when her boss made intrusive requests for medical documentation related to sick days and doctor's visits. This requirement “was not set by the NYPD Medical Division or expected of any other employee,” the complaint states.
She allegedly even refused her coronavirus test results printed on letterhead, which infuriated Ms Williams.
“I had a severe panic attack and an ambulance was called,” she said. “It was getting very hostile…one thing after another happened.”
“I started having headaches and stomach aches and I was lying in bed thinking about getting up the next morning and going to work,” Williams said. “It was like a nightmare…It's hard to hide those emotions when you have two small children.”
Williams said her boss allegedly wrote her a late letter twice because she was a minute late returning from a break, and once in September because she ate too much lunch. He reportedly claimed that he did not inform his superiors about the incident.
“I was furious because this is distorting the facts, like this never happened,” Williams said.
When Williams confronted her supervisor, she admitted that Williams had told her about it, the claim said.
“I said, 'You're after me,'” Williams said. “I said, 'This doesn't seem right. This is harassment.'
Williams said she thinks it's a matter of “emotional management” and hopes New York City Police Department's new Commissioner Jessica Tisch can improve things.
“We have managers who can't control their emotions. They don't make the right decisions. That's part of the chain of command,” Williams said.
“When you have an emotional manager who just feels, 'I hate this person,' they will do anything to make their life a living hell.”
