The group 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care issued a report last month complaining about the treatment of African-Americans in the New York Police Department. As our Christopher Oliver reported, the advocacy group gave Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly grades of “F” for promotions and assignments and department morale, “D” for discipline and punishment and recruitment and retention, and “C” for police enforcement and community relations. The president of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement, Eric Adams, said Mr. Kelly “has failed to use his office to ensure that diversity is of paramount importance to the missions and goals of the New York City Police Department….Although he has made a few ceremonial promotions, he has not used his discretionary powers to appoint qualified African-Americans to policy-making positions.”

Channel 7 TV news quoted civil liberties lawyer Norman Siegel as saying that the NYPD’s diversity statistics “are numbers in Birmingham 40 years ago but not the liberal state and city of New York.” The deputy commissioner for public information, Paul Browne, responded with a statement saying, “Minority representation in the higher ranks of the Police Department has never been better.” Some of the statistics are encouraging to those concerned about minority representation. Mr. Browne noted that although blacks make up 15% of the police force, they represent 16% of all detectives, which is a discretionary rank for promotion. A total of 27 blacks have attained rank of captain under civil service examinations. Of those, 15 have been promoted to the rank of deputy inspector or above. By contrast, Mr. Browne said, 39% of the whites who pass the civil service test for captain have been promoted to higher ranks.

The statement said that among the African-Americans serving under or promoted by Mr. Kelly are: the deputy commissioner of trials, Simon Gourdine; the deputy commissioner of equal employment opportunity, Neldra Zeigler; the chief of Organized Crime and Control, Douglas Zeigler; the commanding officer of community affairs, Joyce Stephen; the chief of the school safety division, Gerald Nelson; the chief of patrol for Brooklyn South, James Secreto, and the chief of the hate crimes task force, Dennis Blackman. Mr. Browne noted,”It is a disservice to the individuals above to cast their promotions and appointments in racial or ethnic terms since their selection was based on merit. Nonetheless, they are identified as such to address the repeated false charges that there is an absence of minority leadership in the Department.”

One point that Mr. Browne could have made was that Mr. Kelly earlier served as police commissioner in the Dinkins administration. And he also could have pointed out that it’s just weird for Mr. Siegel to compare New York in 1995 to Birmingham, Ala., back when there was formal legalized racism. There is racism in New York today, unfortunately. But one place it is not is the commissioner of police. Likening Mayor Dinkins and Mayor Bloomberg’s police commissioner to Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor is offensive. Suggesting that Mr. Kelly is part of the problem in race relations in this city when in fact he has a record he and the entire city can be proud of is the sort of crying wolf that makes it harder to get people’s attention when a genuine racist is on the loose.