NYPD Officer Busted for False Arrest of Black Man
The NYPD is in hot water again after one of its white officers allegedly lied about his arrest of an unarmed Black man and then used racial slurs to describe the arrest.
Officer Michael Daragjati has been charged with writing a false police report claiming that an African-American man resisted arrest by shoving and kicking Daragjati.
The arrest occurred when the 31-year-old Black man was stopped and frisked in the Stapleton neighborhood of Staten Island. After no weapons or contraband were found on the man, he allegedly complained about his treatment and investigators say that is when Daragjati arrested him without probable cause.
In addition to the falsified report, Daragjati allegedly told his supervisor that it took four officers to subdue the man during the ordeal. Later, during a call to a female friend, Daragjati allegedly recounted the incident by saying, “Another n----- fried, no big deal."
The wiretaps came as a result of a federal investigation of Daragjati after several allegations of improper conduct were made against him. After the arrest, the man was held at the police station for two nights before agreeing to plead guilty to a disorderly conduct charge in order to avoid prison time for the more serious resisting arrest charge.
The department’s controversial "stop and frisk" policy has recently come under scrutiny by those who claim the policy is racially discriminatory and leads to a disproportionate amount of minority arrests. The news of Daragjati's misconduct comes just a week after a New York City narcotics detective testified that he and other members of the Brooklyn South and Queens narcotic squads regularly planted drugs on innocent people in order to keep up with department arrest quotas.
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(Photo: Lucas Jackson/Reuters)
