The IAB Needs an IAB

Last week's Village Voice reported a disturbing story about the blatant and vulgar homophobia that a gay detective alleges he experienced in the NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau.

In a suit filed anonymously under the name “John Doe,” the 33-year Long Island native alleges that after enduring repeated anti-gay harassment in the 103rd precinct in Queens, he followed senior brass suggestions that he transfer to IAB.

There, his suit claims, he encountered a “frat-house” climate where “fudgepacker,” “homo,” and “faggot” were freely bandied about. One fellow officer, who accused Doe of “looking at my package,” took to routinely calling him a “meat gazer” (that's a new one on me).

Doe also alleges that his superiors harassed him in the work they assigned him, at one point dumping a backlog of 1,700 parking violation complaints on him to clear. When he complained, he was charged with insubordination, the Voice reports.

Perhaps the most bizarre twist in the story is the alleged reaction of a department psychiatrist Doe was ordered to see in the wake of lodging a formal complaint. The doctor asked him if he planned to sue.

“The most disturbing thing is that it has been continuing for years,” one of Doe's lawyers, Ishmael Secondas, told the Voice. “I've never had a case like this.”