Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times
Eric Adams, a police captain and one of the founders of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care.
Posted on 02/20/2006 3:01:41 PM PST by neverdem
A founder of a black police organization said yesterday that he was facing departmental charges for publicly criticizing the city's handling of a terror alert last fall.
Eric Adams, a captain who heads 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, will attend proceedings this week over accusations that his appearance on a television news program in October is grounds for termination, one of his lawyers, Norman Siegel, said at a news conference.
On the program, on WCBS-TV, Captain Adams castigated the city for deciding to wait four days before publicizing a Department of Homeland Security warning about a possible terror attack in the subways.
At the time, Captain Adams suggested that the city released the information when it did to distract attention from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's failure to appear at a candidates' debate at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. The threat later turned out to be unfounded.
If the disciplinary action were to result in dismissal, Captain Adams, a 22-year veteran scheduled to retire on March 17, could lose his pension. Mr. Siegel said that the captain was planning to run in Brooklyn for a seat in the State Senate.
Mr. Siegel said the issue was one of free speech, adding that the move to dismiss the captain, a frequent critic of the department, was "an example of thin-skinned managerial decision-making" and a simple matter of retaliation.
"This case is extremely important for all New Yorkers," Mr. Siegel said. "We cannot allow any government entity to punish or possibly silence needed critics on the issues of public concern," he said, adding that "even the filing of the charges potentially chills government employees from speaking out."
Mr. Siegel said that Captain Adams, in his role as a spokesman for an outside organization, had a right to criticize the department.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
They are trying to get him because he is black.
Why is it a person employed by the city cannot criticize the city's handling of events but a professor employed by a university can make excessively offensives statements?
"Eric Adams, a police captain and one of the founders of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care."
Maybe they did do him wrong but I'm so tired of these exclusive "no-whites" clubs and organizations that I could care less.
Adams is about to run for public office in NY so he will be off the force anyway.
If that is indeed true as a department SOP violation and Adams in anyway represented himself as a NYPD employee while doing that for an outside organization, I think the NYPD is right. Firing him seems harsh unless this guys been burning bridges for a while. Then again this is a NY Times article so what are they leaving out that we should know?
what about the other 99
They're next. Because they are black.
Don't you know that blacks are persecuted in this country simply because they are black?
ok
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