A white undercover cop claims his coll✃eagues of color refused to give him backup during violent confrontations with suspects because of his race, forcing him to quit the force in fear🎉 for his life.
NYPD Detective John Olsen, a former Marine, said he could have been killed at least twice after Hispanic, Asia﷽n and black cops working with him stood idly by while he was attacked twice during drug buys gone awry in 2019, ꦡaccording to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Manhattan Supreme Court.
“I genuinely felt like m⛎y ✱life was in jeopardy if I continued,” Olsen, 34, told The Post. “They did everything in their power to make it miserable for me.”
Olsen joined the department in January 2015 as a 🅺patrolman assigned to public housing in the South Bronx before being chosen for the specialized Anti-Crime Unit, according to court filings.
He was transferred to the Northern ꦿManhattan Detective Bureau in February 2019 🦄to work as an undercover officer.
The red flags appeared almost♔ immediately, he said.
While training for undercover work, Olsen said 🔯he was the only white officer.
A senior detective ominously commented: “A white undercover, this will be fun.”
Within his first few months on the job, Olsen said he was surrounded an💎d punched in the face in front of a car f💖ull of detectives during a drug buy in Harlem.
The other detectives photographed the attack but did not intervene because they didn’t want to risk “being tainted by association with a white undercover,” Olsen said in court papers.
“They watched [the attacker] walk back inside the housing projects,” Olsen said. “It was totally against our rules for narcotics to let that go.”
Undercover detectives are required to have another officer nearby, called a “ghost,” who can jump in when danger arises, Olsen said. But he was often ghosted by his ghost.
“The second an undercover’s life is in danger or someone gets assaulted, the field team is supposed to move in immediately to apprehend the person and rescue the officer,” he said.
After the incident, the lead detective told him, “Sorry kid, I’m not doing anything, this isn’t 1992,” according to the filing.
In July 2019, Olsen said he was forced to chase down and fight a drug dealer who pul꧅led a knife on him in Hamilton Heights.
The dealer had ordered Olsen to smoke crack to prove he wasn’t a cop, but Olsen tried to talk his way out of it, he said.
Olsen pulled hi🦹s gun and chased and finally subdued the suspect, but tore his labrum and rotator cuff during the scuffle, which sidelined him until January 2020, according to his lawsuit.
“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.
An incident like the one that injured Olsen would usually prompt a transfer to a different area, Olsen said, but he claimed he was never transferred because his bosses were angry he wasn’t busting more drug peddlers.
In September, Olsen said he caught CO𓂃VID-19, which 𒐪infuriated his bosses.
They transferre♍d him from northwest Manhattan to East Harlem and the Upper East Side.
None of his undercover colleagues at the time, which includ🐬ed two Hispanic officers and an Asian officer, were transferred wh🙈en they caught coronavirus and called in sick, Olsen said.
His colleagues were offered more overtime opportunities, Olsen said, adding that his bosses made “his life as uncomfortable as possible” including a superior who made a comment about his military service.
“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 said. “And I don’t know why, but at the end he said, ‘It’s because you’re a military guy.'”
“I did not expect that at all,” Olsen added. “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.”
He resꦦigned in May 2022, despite being 13 years short of a f🦩ull NYPD pension.
“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 added.
Olsen is suing the city for unspecified damages, citing discrimina🌸tion based on race and military serv🦩ice.
“Rather than transfer our client to a situation where he could thrive, his bosses forced him into increasingly danger✤ouꦿs situations without backup in an effort to force him to leave the unit due to his inability to bring in numbers due to his race,” Olsen’s attorney, John Scola, said.
“This flippancy toward Detective Olsen’s life forced him into multiple fights with drug dealers…and ultimately led to his resignation out of fear fo⛦r his safety,” Scola added.
The NYPD declined to comment on the lawsuit.
