Stop-and-frisk may be on the decrease, but racial profiling still runs strong among New York City’s police force.
The NYPD regularly detains Muslim New Yorkers for low-level crimes, and pressures them into becoming confidential informants within their Muslim communities, the New York Times reports. The Citywide Debriefing Team, an arm of the NYPD’s Intelligence Division, locates Muslim detainees in temporary holding in city jails. The Debriefing Team stalls the detainees’ arraignments by interrogating them on topics unrelated to their accused crimes.
Bayjan Abrahimi, a food cart vendor from Afghanistan, found himself in front of the Debriefing Team after he was arrested over a parking ticket in 2009. Instead of a speedy arraignment, he was detained by three members of the team, who questioned him on his religion, the nationalities of other worshippers at his mosque, and whether he was familiar with any members of Al-Qaeda. The detectives had also researched Abrahimi’s hobbies and family, and questioned him on his brother, a taxi-driver in Afghanistan. Then they asked him to turn spy.
“I say, ‘O.K., O.K., O.K., because I want to finish,’” Abrahimi told the Times. “At this time, I’m really scared.” According to reports, he was one of over 1,000 people pressured to inform NYPD of goings-on in the Muslim community.
