A former detective who worked undercover for the New York Police Department claims he was denied backup from other officers during violent confrontations because he is White.
Marine veteran John Olsen filed a lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court in June over alleged race discrimination and military status discrimination after he said he was assigned undercover work in a largely Hispanic neighborhood.
“Detective Olsen, while working as an undercover detective for the NYPD, was assigned to a predominately Hispanic neighborhood which, as a White undercover, increased the danger of his job, lessened his ability to make safe drug buys and angered his bosses,” Olsen’s attorney John Scola told Fox News Digital.
The lawsuit claims he was allegedly left without backup from minority NYPD members during violent confrontations with drug dealers, including near-fatal incidents, due to his skin color.
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Former NYPD detective John Olsen holding his Citation of Merit.
“A white undercover, this will be fun,” Olsen heard on his first day of training in 2019 to become an undercover detective, according to the lawsuit obtained by Fox News Digital. He was the only White officer in the training, according to the suit.
The comment was one of the first in a series of racially-charged incidents and comments Olsen allegedly faced when he was transferred to the Northern Manhattan Detective Bureau in 2019. Olsen joined the NYPD in 2015 after serving in the Marine Corps in Afghanistan, and was later transferred to the NYPD’s specialized Anti-Crime Unit and then finally his undercover assignment.
“As the only white undercover in a position which is generally considered a minority only job, Plaintiff was constantly under a microscope,” the lawsuit claims.
Olsen successfully completed his training and was assigned to work undercover to buy drugs from dealers in Manhattan. Olsen “excelled” as an undercover detective, but was allegedly faced with continued harassment for his color while dealing with a “greater risk of harm” while purchasing the drugs from dealers, he claimed.
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Just a couple of months on the job, Olsen was reportedly surrounded by suspects, punched in the face and threatened that his life would end during a Harlem drug buy. A car full of detectives allegedly watched the scene but did not intervene, according to the suit.
“They watched [the attacker] walk back inside the housing projects,” Olsen said, according to the New York Post. “It was totally against our rules for narcotics to let that go.”
Every undercover in the department is required to have another member of the force, known as a “ghost,” on the same block in case an operation spirals into violence.
The 34-year-old Marine veteran said in court papers that fellow detectives did not want to “ghost” him that day and risk “being tainted by association with a White undercover.”
Former NYPD detective John Olsen seen during his military service. (John Scola )
“Sorry kid, I’m not doing anything this isn’t 1992,” the case detective told Olsen after the first assault, the suit claims.
In July 2019, Olsen allegedly faced another violent incident when he had to chase down and fight a drug dealer who pulled a knife on him.
Olsen was apparently attempting to buy crack in Hamilton Heights when another dealer who was previously arrested was spotted by an NYPD field team approaching the other dealer preparing to sell Olsen crack. The other NYPD members reportedly did not flag Olsen about the presence of the other drug dealer and was “again operating without a proper ‘ghost’ due to his race,” according to the suit.
The dealer selling crack returned to Olsen after getting the drugs from a stash location and attempted to get Olsen to smoke the substance to prove he was not a cop, according to the allegations. Olsen tried to talk his way out of the situation, according to the suit, before the dealer allegedly pulled a knife and threatened to stab Olsen multiple times.
“My life was in danger and I know that no one is coming to save me because of that last time, so I had to do what I had to do,” Olsen said, according to the New York Post.
Olsen pulled his gun, chased the dealer and subdued him, he claimed. The incident, however, left Olsen with a torn labrum and rotator cuff, which allegedly kept him out of working until January 2020.
NYPD vehicle is seen at Times Square in New York City Oct. 24, 2022. (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“Normally, one such incident would result in a transfer to a different command,” the lawsuit states. “This would almost always be done to give the undercover a fresh start in a new area where he could buy narcotics.”
Olsen said he believes was not transferred because his bosses were angry he was not busting more drug dealers.
Then in September 2020, Olsen tested positive for COVID-19, which reportedly made one of his bosses “furious.”
After he returned to work, he was transferred from northwest Manhattan to East Harlem and the Upper East Side, he said. His other colleagues who also contracted COVID-19 – who were Hispanic and Asian – were not transferred when they returned to work and were instead offered more overtime opportunities that totaled up to $25,000 each that year compared to Olsen, he claimed.
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“Additionally, Plaintiff did not receive fair evaluations when compared to peers performing the same job with similar performance,” the lawsuit states. “As a result of these higher evaluation scores, minority officers within the command are given greater opportunities for career advancement within the NYPD.”
Olsen argued that his bosses made “his life as uncomfortable as possible,” including one superior who allegedly told Olsen the motivation behind singling him out was because he was a “military guy.”
“He said ‘I’m going to make your life very miserable, I’m going to be on top of you …everything you do I’m going to be looking for mistakes,'” Olsen told the New York Post. “And I don’t know why, but at the end he said, ‘It’s because you’re a military guy.'”
Former NYPD detective John Olsen seen during his military service. (John Scola )
“I did not expect that at all,” Olsen continued. “He said it was because I was a military guy, but I think it was also because I was a white undercover and they were trying to get rid of me.”
Olsen ultimately resigned from the force in May of last year, 13 years before he was eligible to receive an NYPD pension.
“When our client complained about the discrimination, he was told he is getting harsher treatment due to his time spent in the United States military and placed back into increasingly dangerous situations to force him out of the unit,” Scola told Fox News Digital. “
This flippancy toward Detective Olsen’s life forced him into multiple fights with drug dealers, one of which required him to pull his firearm to avoid being stabbed and ultimately led to his resignation out of fear for his safety.”
For Olsen, he said the experience at the NYPD was one of the “most traumatic” he’s lived through.
“I fought in Afghanistan, I was in special ops in the South Bronx, I was an undercover in Narcotics in Harlem, but I think that was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life — having the whole NYPD weaponized against me,” Olsen told the New York Post.
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He is suing for unspecified damages over race and military service discrimination. The NYPD declined to comment on pending litigation when approached by Fox News Digital.
