The NYPD detectives union is outraged after a group of Bronx prosecutors wrote a scathing letter denouncing police conduct in the wake of the George Floyd protests.
In an open letter to Bronx DA Darcel Clark, Detectives’ Endowment Association president Paul DiGiacomo wrote that they no longer want to work with the 56 prosecutors who penned the highly critical missive last week.
“Given their words and their abject disdain for members of the NYPD, they can no longer effectively and fairly perform their duties,” wrote DiGiacomo in the June 25 letter posted to the DEA’s website and addressed to DA Darcel Clark. “They have made any working relationship between themselves and members of the DEA unimaginable.”
DiGiacomo goes on to say that the 35 named and 21 anonymous Bronx assistant district attorneys who wrote the letter accusing the NYPD of having a culture of violence have all but abandoned their roles as community guardians.
In the prosecutors’ letter to Clark, they wrote, “This office must do more to contend with the reality of police brutality in the Bronx, beginning with an unequivocal condemnation of the NYPD’s unwarranted use of violence.”
DiGiacomo blasted the “slanderous” missive authored by a group of what he called inexperienced prosecutors, a majority of whom had been in the office for under three years.
“While members of your office sat safely at home behind their computer screens writing a letter maligning the NYPD, and falsely claiming that police are perpetrating hate crimes against citizens, our members did not have the luxury of sheltering at home,” the union boss wrote.
“Our detectives have been out every day being assaulted merely because of the uniform they wear. It is our members who have had Molotov cocktails launched into their vehicles, rocks and bricks thrown at their faces, baseball bats aimed at their heads, and their RMPs [police cars] set ablaze.”
The Bronx suffered significant looting during protests over the death of Floyd at the hands of Minnesota cops.
The prosecutors’ letter accused the NYPD of using excessive force against peaceful protesters by driving SUVs through an encircling crowd, trapping thousands of them on the Manhattan Bridge and using pepper spray on them.
“In short, the NYPD heard our city asking police to stop killing black people and responded with more force and violence than many of us, privileged or not, have ever witnessed first-hand,” the prosecutors wrote in the letter, which asked Clark to hold police accountable “for the crimes they commit against the people we are sworn to protect.”
The ADAs called the criminal justice system “broken” and in need of “sweeping change” to combat violence in policing.
The group also asked Clark for clearer procedures on how to handle police misconduct.
Some Bronx prosecutors were outraged by their colleagues’ letter. Veteran homicide prosecutor Paul Rosenfeld wrote in an email to the DEA that he was “disgusted” and “ashamed” by his co-workers’ statements.
“This letter demeans our work and our dedication to justice,” Rosenfeld wrote.
Clark’s office didn’t immediately return a request for comment.