NYPD Sergeant’s Lawsuit Claims Bosses Plotted To Break Into His Home After He Filed Complaint About Drunk Cops At Electric Zoo
An NYPD sergeant has filed a lawsuit against the department alleging that his bosses plotted to break into his home, forced him to undergo a psychiatric exam, and filed formal charges against him in retaliation for a complaint he filed about officers getting drunk on duty at the EDM festival Electric Zoo on Randall’s Island last September.
As the New York Daily News reports, Sgt. Jose Dume was traveling in Europe when he received a text from his supervisor, Sgt. Sean Pitman, asking him to contact a friend about getting Manhattan North Narcotics officers VIP access at Electric Zoo so they could talk to women. Dume told the Daily News that he was uncomfortable with the request and ignored it. He later noticed a group chat among narcotics officers filling up with stories about officers getting drunk at the festival, including one who had sex with a woman in a bathroom and others who were accused of stealing alcoholic beverages by festival staff.
While still overseas, based on what he saw in the group chat — in messages that Pitman later deleted — Dume filed an anonymous complaint about officers getting drunk while armed and drove other drunk cops home using police cars. Not long after he filed the complaint, Dume says he was contacted by another supervisor, Deputy Inspector John Wilson, asking who approved his leave of absence for the trip. “What is a Dominican doing in Ukraine?” Wilson supposedly asked Dume. Last week his bosses filed formal charges against him for taking a leave of absence without approval, though he provided documents to the Daily News proving that his leave was approved.
Dume says when he returned to NYC, he was punished with a denied vacation request and a post standing guard outside a building for his full shift. When he complained about mistreatment, he was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation and was found unfit to carry a gun.
Last month, three detectives from that same narcotics unit were indicted on grand larceny charges for allegedly breaking into the VIP section at Electric Zoo to steal two $1,500 bottles of Jay-Z’s champagne, Ace Of Spades.
This year’s Electric Zoo is going down Sept. 1-3 at Randall’s Island.