The accusations from Dana Rachlin, a prominent police reform advocate who once had open access to Brooklyn precincts, highlight a growing rift between the NYPD and criminal justice reformers.

In the lawsuit, filed in the Eastern District of New York on Monday, Rachlin alleges that in mid-2020 NYPD officials cut off her access to the North Brooklyn precincts her nonprofit serves and told precinct leaders not to work with her.

Soon afterward, the lawsuit claims, confidential information about her alleged sexual assault was circulated to community advocates, mixed in with misinformation about the investigation and the notion that she fabricated the attack and falsely accused a Black man of rape.

Those same claims later surfaced in two anonymous letters sent to police officials, politicians and others, the lawsuit alleges.

One of the letters referred to Rachlin as a “wolf in Sheep’s clothing,” who deployed her “feminine charm to gain the trust of unsuspecting officers.” The other included specifics of her sexual assault, alongside inaccuracies about why her case was closed.

“Ms. Rachlin was willing to send another innocent African American man to jail for her own gain. What a disgrace!” the letter reads.

    • DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.worldEnglish
      58·
      7 months ago

      The NYPD should have been broken up when they tried to kill Frank Serpico, or we could go back about a hundred years and they should have been broken up when the Tamany Hall corruption machine infiltrated the NYPD thoroughly.

      I’m from NYC, I’ve got a lot of family in the NYPD and DoC, and the NYPD is more than a hundred years past due to be broken up. They should separate the department into county>borough>city>village>town departments, so they can all watch and investigate each other until acceptable levels of corruption have been achieved. (acceptable levels are usually a very low percentages of corruption, we’ll never completely eliminate it, so the goal is to get it as low as we can.)

    • Liz@midwest.socialEnglish
      26·
      7 months ago

      They got one of their own committed to a mental hospital because he was pushing back on their bullshit. They literally have a “friends and family” card you can show an officer and get out of a ticket. These are the people who claimed they have the authority to just randomly search people on the street for no reason.

  • NegativeInf@lemmy.world
    27·
    7 months ago

    Can’t wait for the SVU episode about this specific thing, “Ripped from the Headlines!” Mariska Hargitay playing up the “Not all cops…” angle and Iced T acting surprised at the depravity of the world. All wrapped up in less than 45 mins. Lol. Jk. Dick wolf would never betray the cops.

    • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      7 months ago

      I love how stabler was the most realistic cop depicted on SVU, cause he had a massive attitude problem, loved to go leap to violence, and everyone just handwaved and covered it up and pretended it didnt happen with no repercussions.

  • RBWells@lemmy.world
    10·
    7 months ago

    Wait, I can deploy feminine charm to gain the trust of the police? Why did nobody tell me this? Where can I get this sheep’s clothing? Is there an online shop?

    WTF, NYPD?