A white NYPD sergeant says he wouldn’t go along with the harassment of a black officer — and now he claims that he’s being subjected to harsh treatment for his refusals.
Sgt. Valentin Khazin’s Brooklyn federal lawsuit argues that he was targeted with unjustified payback because he wouldn’t help make life miserable for Officer Dana Harge — who’s got his own pending Manhattan federal suit alleging racial discrimination in the elite Highway Patrol unit.
Because Khazin wouldn’t play ball, he claims his own life is being made miserable.
Khazin has been transferred from Highway Patrol and claims he’s under constant scrutiny. He says he’s seen his overtime slashed — but then become swamped with extra work, especially during holidays, to keep him away from his family.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Khazin, 32, told the Daily News.
Harge was doing his job, said Khazin, who is white. And when the sergeant brought it up that he felt superiors had it out for Harge because of his discrimination complaints, Khazin said he “signed my own death warrant.”
This past Father’s Day, the 32-year-old father of a 1- and 2-year-old, said he was kept on duty almost 24 hours because there allegedly weren’t others to help out.
Eric Sanders, Khazin’s lawyer, said what happened to his client is an example of what happens to people who don’t go along to get along.
Khazin was “one of the few people not afraid to take on the department and sue them. I hear about this stuff all time. It’s just a matter of anyone taking any action,” said Sanders.
The suit, filed Thursday, doesn’t just allege retaliation connected to Harge.
Khazin says Highway Patrol brass imposed “performance goals or quotas” of 70 summonses per officer for two platoons and 50 summonses per officer in another platoon.
Khazin’s suit also claims he was ordered in January to lower the performance rating of another black officer because she filed a discrimination complaint against a sergeant.
Khazin told The News he always hoped to make it to the Highway Patrol.
He finally got there in 2015, coming in as a sergeant and ultimately assigned to Highway Patrol Three, which is primarily responsible for the Grand Central Parkway in Queens.
Khazin told The News as soon as he got there, brass told him to keep an eye on Harge, who supposedly was a troublemaker and a “do nothing.”
So Khazin kept his eye on Harge and discovered “all he does is his job. He does it as well as anyone else.”
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