An NYPD employee claims she confronted retaliation and discrimination after she begged to be reassigned after an alleged home violence assault, she claims in a fiery new lawsuit.
Fingerprint tech Santio Williams claimed the mistreatment started when she requested a transfer from NYPD headquarters at 1 Police Plaza to keep away from any future interactions along with her alleged abuser.
Her request was not solely denied, however her police supervisors despatched her to as a substitute work at a division recognized for its abuse, harassment and micro-managing, her swimsuit states.
When her sister died in October and Williams requested for bereavement depart together with a loss of life certificates, her supervisor demanded she return with a funeral program exhibiting a listing of siblings “to prove that [Williams] is a family member,” her swimsuit states, one thing that’s not required by the division.
“It’s like a torture chamber,” Williams instructed The Publish. “It’s a case of retaliation.”
The each day harassment has led to extreme stress, nervousness and panic assaults so extreme that first-responders have been known as not less than twice, she claims within the lawsuit, which was filed in Manhattan Supreme Court docket in November.
The swimsuit follows an identical authorized motion filed in October by a Staten Island detective who claimed she confronted each day harassment and racism at her precinct after she requested for an lodging as a single mom.
“The NYPD consistently disregards New York City law by retaliating against employees who request accommodations,” stated lawyer John Scola, who filed each of the current fits.
“In a disturbing contradiction of its mission to prevent domestic violence, the department refused to provide a necessary accommodation to an employee seeking protection from a domestic abuser and then retaliated against her for seeking safety,” Scola instructed The Publish.
A spokesperson for the NYPD instructed The Publish that the division “does not tolerate discrimination in any form and is committed to respectful work environments for our diverse workforce,” and declined to remark additional on pending litigation.
After Williams allegedly fled her bodily abusive husband and moved right into a home violence shelter final 12 months, police leaders instructed her that there weren’t every other places for fingerprint techs in the intervening time, she claimed.
However Williams had been working out-of-title as a police administrative aide — a higher-ranking civilian place — since just a few months after she joined up in spring 2023, and will have been relocated simply as an aide, her swimsuit claims,
“When I became homeless, I asked for the reasonable accommodation,” Williams recalled, “And [when]I used to be instructed I can’t get it, I argued: I stated, why can’t I get it once I’m not even working as a fingerprint technician?
“That did not rub them the right way,” she stated, and Williams quickly obtained a letter denying her request.
On the identical day, she was allegedly transferred again to the fingerprint division, forcing her to work again “in title,” Williams stated.
“Why, for security reasons, I couldn’t be accommodated, out of [NYPD’s] duty of care to me, to transfer me away from this area?” she recalled.
Williams stated when she was first employed on the NYPD in Could 2023 — with a protracted work historical past from her longtime dwelling of London with regulation enforcement, “trained in forgery, experienced in investigations and intelligence, behavioral profiling, and safeguarding,” her swimsuit states.
She made the hiring workforce nicely conscious of her childcare obligations for her two children — ages 3 and eight — and requested for a daytime tour, which the division gladly accommodated.
“I was even told that I was overqualified,” Williams stated, and he or she recalled that she solely took the lower-ranking job underneath the fingerprinting title as a result of she was instructed there can be some retirements quickly for larger positions she certified for.
After a month, Williams was transferred to the Legal Information Unit at 1 Police Plaza, the place she started working as a PAA out-of-title with no pay improve, she instructed The Publish. She had additionally handed her PAA civil service examination with excessive marks, in accordance with her lawsuit.
For the subsequent few months, she was counseled for her work ethic, the swimsuit claims.
Williams stated her job was “a safe haven” after the alleged abuse by the hands of her husband, an American she met whereas on trip in Jamaica. She moved to town in 2019 along with her husband as a sponsor, she claimed.
The abuse started as verbal — however then turned bodily, Willaims claimed, and turned to superiors as a result of she didn’t know what to do.
“We used to vent about it every day until things got really bad,” Williams recalled, then her supervisor instructed her: “No, you had to do something about it,” and gave her a pamphlet for a home violence shelter.
“He was so unpredictable. The only way I could imagine being safe was being away from him,” she claimed to The Publish.
When her case employee instructed her she ought to attempt to work in a special zip code to make it tougher for her husband to seek out her, that’s when she requested for an lodging — requests for that are dealt with by a very completely different workforce, she stated.
However her denial and transfer again to the fingerprinting workplace, the place she had labored beforehand for just a few weeks, was simply the beginning of the retaliation, in accordance with her claims.
The workplace was not a secure haven for her, and her supervisor didn’t simply lack a receptive ear, however was decided to ostracize her completely, Williams claimed.
“Everyone was very stiff-necked,” she instructed The Publish, and stated her new supervisor wouldn’t even face her when she needed to communicate.
Williams, whose duties meant she was hardly ever at her desk for many of the day, stated the supervisor would simply drop work on her desk and never inform her — leaving her at the hours of darkness — and would exclude her from office-wide emails about image day or that everybody was speculated to put on crimson for some coordinated occasion, she stated.
“Even on bring-your-child-to-work day, my request to bring my child was denied,” Williams stated.
Williams stated the harassment obtained extra overt when her supervisor made onerous requests for medical documentation of any sick days or physician appointments — a requirement not “set by the NYPD Medical Division or expected of any other employee,” the lawsuit states.
She even allegedly refused a COVID take a look at outcome printed on letterheaded paperwork — which despatched Williams over the sting.
“I had a severe panic attack — EMS was called,” she stated. “It had just become so hostile… It was one thing after another.”
“I started to have headaches, stomach aches, I would lay in bed thinking about waking up the next morning to go to work,” Williams stated. “It had become a nightmare…and it’s hard to hide that sort of feeling when you have two small kids.”
Twice her supervisor allegedly wrote her up for tardiness for being one minute late coming back from a break, and one other time in September, claiming that she by no means knowledgeable them of an occasion the place her lunch ran over, Williams stated.
“I was furious because this is distorting facts,” Williams stated, “like, this was not what happened.”
When Williams confronted her supervisor, she acknowledged Willams had instructed her about it, in accordance with the claims.
“I said: you’re targeting me,” Williams stated. “I said: this doesn’t seem right. This is harassment.”
Williams stated she thinks it’s a case of “emotional management,” and stated she hopes the brand new NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch can enhance issues.
“You have managers who they can’t manage with their emotions,” Williams stated, “they don’t make the right decisions, and it’s a part of the chain of command.”
“When you have an emotional manager who just feels like: ‘I don’t like this person,’ so whatever they want to make their life a living hell, they will do.”
