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Nassau police use 'Y' to refer to Asian-American officers in records
Quote:
The Nassau County Police Department uses "Y" for yellow to describe Asian-American officers and "I" for Native Americans, the New York Civil Liberties Union said as it published a database of records from police departments across the state.
Nassau police officials said the designations stem from a 25-year-old information technology system and promised to "immediately" revise them.
The letter designations were found in a chart on the department’s diversity for January 2016, according to personnel documents posted on the NYCLU’s database. Minorities made up 37 percent of the county’s residents but 18 percent of Nassau County police officers, the NYCLU said.
Behind the Badge, an NYCLU report released this month based on three years of public information requests to 23 police departments, also said Nassau, like many of the departments, resisted the group's requests for access to public records that covered police stops, use of force, department diversity and other issues.
She said "yellow" to describe Asian-Americans is "obviously derogatory" and that Native American is a more respectful and specific than the "I" for "Indian."
"Language is a real indicator of the culture of an institution," Gottehrer said. "The Nassau County Police Department really needs to make it clear to all the people it protects that it is sensitive."
The NYCLU report prompted Nassau County Executive Laura Curran to order a countywide review of all computer programs, her spokesman said Monday.
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31 Jul 2018, 1:46 am
