Muslim NYPD Officer Says She Endured Years Of Abuse From Fellow Cops

GREENPOINT, BROOKLYN — A Muslim NYPD officer who for years patrolled Greenpoint while wearing her headscarf, or hijab, has filed suit against her own department, saying she endured repeated acts of harassment and discrimination from fellow officers.

Danielle Alamrani joined the Greenpoint's 94th Precinct in 2006. In 2009, after receiving department approval, she began to wear a hijab to work — prompting other officers at the precinct to call her names like "terrorist," "Taliban" and "Muslim b---h," and even refuse to work alongside her, according to the lawsuit.

Alamrani is demanding a trial by jury.

Her lawsuit also alleges that several of her NYPD superiors told her not to wear the hijab because it was a "safety hazard" on the job.

In 2010, a sergeant at the 94th Precinct joked that Alamrani would "detonate on patrol," the suit says — at which point everyone in the room "openly laughed" at her.

"This was really a missed opportunity," Alamrani's attorney, Jesse Rose, told Patch. "And it's still a missed opportunity."

"The NYPD serves hundreds of thousands of Muslims," Rose said. "She's one of two Muslim female officers that wear the hijab, and she was the first. How many Muslim people in the city will never see someone who looks like them? Why would the NYPD not see this as an opportunity to connect with and better serve and protect them?"

In September 2014, Alamrani's neighbors made a noise complaint to the NYPD about her children, according to the former officer's suit. Alamrani's colleague, Tatiana Ryan, responded to the complaint, the suit says — then detained Alamrani for eight hours upon arriving to her house and finding her children asleep.

Ryan called Alamrani's family "Arabs" who "slept on the floor like animals," according to the lawsuit.

Alamrani was placed on modified duty after this incident. For three months in 2015, she went into early retirement because, she says, she couldn't handle any more harassment.

In the summer of 2015, a new sergeant was assigned to the 94th Precinct: Peter Rose. So Alamrani tried coming back to work — only to find she was still being discriminated against, her suit says. The new sergeant assigned her to patrol the highway alone at night, she claims, and other officers at the precinct began calling her "ISIS" and "jihad."

On Nov. 9, 2015, Sgt. Marnie Schwager posted a photo to Facebook of Alamrani at a shooting range for work, using a gun while wearing a hijab, the lawsuit says. Commenters wrote beneath the photo that Alamrani was an "f---ing disgrace" and a "moving target," and made death threats against her, the suit says.

When Alamrani reported the incident to internal affairs, her colleague allegedly retaliated by calling the Administration for Children's Services on her because she had "cracked walls" in her apartment.

Alamrani is seeking unspecified damages for physical and emotional suffering and lost work time, among other damages, her attorney said.

The NYPD declined to comment on the pending litigation. Alamrani is not speaking to the press, according to her attorney.

Rose, Alamrani's attorney, was careful to say he does not believe his client's experience speaks to a larger, systemic problem within the NYPD. "My experience has been very different in dealing with police officers," he said. "This seems to be isolated to while she was in the 94th Precinct. She's been transferred and has had no issues."

"The NYPD employs a lot of people," the attorney said, "and of course there are always going to be a couple people who may be intolerant. But the vast majority of police officers are out there doing their job, and we don't want to say that this is indicative of the entire NYPD.

"From everything I can see, this was a failure on the ground level to take complaints seriously and to make sure an officer was protected from other officers that hold discriminatory views of her religion," he said.

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