Hispanics now largest ethnic group in New York Police Department

Hispanic Americans are now the dominant ethnic group making up the ranks of the New York Police Department (NYPD), according to a new report.

The NYPD, ranked the largest municipal police organization in the United States, is now employing more Hispanic police officers that any other ethnic group, according to police sources and fraternal organizations reports the New York Daily News.

The ethnic shift marks a landmark change for the face of the Big Apple’s police agency, which was founded 179 years ago on May 23, 1845. The NYPD made similar history in 1911 when it employed the first Black police officer and again in 1918 when it hired the first female officer.

In 1924, the NYPD also founded the first Shomrim Society, a fraternal organization of Jewish police officers. At the time, there were a record number of 700 Jewish police officers on the force.

The changing dynamics of the NYPD comes after a directed effort by the city to ensure diversity throughout the force’s ranks and two decades after New York settled a $91 million discrimination lawsuit with the Latino Officers Association.

That settlement came on the heels of a critical report from the U.S Commission on Civil Rights, which concluded that people of color “are still dramatically underrepresented in the force compared with the overall population of New York City.” The report added that “the many flaws in the recruitment and training processes may contribute to race-related problems in the NYPD.”

Since then however, there have been some significant changes.

NYPD Hispanic Society President and NYPD Detective Joseph Ayala told the Daily News that the department has strived toward “creating a more representative force with qualified candidates that reflect the demographics of the communities they serve.”

Ayala, who is of Puerto Rican ethnicity, said the changes have included the conscription of Hispanic Americans from many different nationalities.

“Their stories, their lives are all essentially billboards for the NYPD,” he said. “Having a diverse police force leads to better understanding and improved relationships with the communities we serve.”

A recent NYPD report says that Hispanics make up 32.5% of the 33,475 police officers on the force, a number that ranks only second to Whites who make up 39.7% of the organization.

Blacks make up 16.5% and Asians represent 11.3% of the municipal police agency.

According to the NYPD, those numbers now coincide with the actual ethnic breakdown of New York City. Among a city wide population of 8,335,897, Whites represent 31.2% of the population, Hispanics, 29%, Blacks 23.1% and Asians, 14.5%.

“Among the rank of police officer, there are 7,542 Hispanic police officers, 35.9% of all officers. Whites are second, with 7.049, or 33.5%, followed by Black officers, with 3,741, or 17.8% and Asians, with 2,675, of 12.7%,” the Daily News reported.

While the NYPD has changed the diversity dimensions within its ranks some Latino civil rights organizations still say the law enforcement agency has to change its policing methods to prevent a disparate impact against Hispanic Americans on the street.

“Having the number of Latino officers in the NYPD more closely reflect our city’s demographics is notable but does not by itself guarantee that New Yorkers will get the dignity, respect, and justice they deserve from those who are supposed to protect and serve them,” said Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF) President Lourdes Rosado, a Hispanic American justice group.

“While we may hope that Latino officers will take the concerns of Latino New Yorkers seriously, as long as the department continues to evade its responsibility to discipline widespread officer misconduct, the race or identity of the officer in question will not heal public trust.”

Alex Sanchez, a Puerto Rican-Italian criminal defense attorney from the Bronx however said that prejudice within the ranks of the NYPD has vastly diminished and the law enforcement agency’s conduct has improved, a factor he attributes since many of the minorities within the ranks aim to treat people in their own communities better.

“While you do come across cases where police do something wrong or don’t have a justification for stopping you I believe there is less of that, and when it does happen it’s not always simply because you’re black or Hispanic,” Sanchez told the Daily News.

“I don’t simply believe something that’s told to me. I want to know the facts. I’m not interested in suppositions or people deciding there must be racism going on.”

One police officer who is a Cuban-American and joined the NYPD ranks nearly two decades ago said he did so at the advice of his father, but that since then the department has made proactive efforts to recruit Hispanic Americans so it can better respond to Latino communities.