NYPD’s wrong message to immigrants
The Bloomberg administration and NYPD have encouraged immigrants-regardless of their status-to cooperate with crime fighting. The response to a well-intentioned man undermines that message.
William Giraldo happened to be caught on camera leaving a Dunkin Donuts around the time that a rape was committed. After seeing himself in the NYPD-circulated video, Giraldo spoke with his family and fiancé and took action: he went to the local precinct, without a lawyer, to clarify the misidentification of him as a suspect.
Giraldo did the right thing, but got the wrong treatment. He was reportedly surrounded by detectives pressuring him to confess. He was lined up, arraigned, and detained for a month after failing to come up with a $100,000 bail. His information was sent to immigration officials, as is the practice at Rikers Island.
In November four months after the police had ruled him out as the perpetrator of a series of sex assaults- prosecutors dropped the charges when the DNA results finally came back negative.
There were no explanations for why it took them so long to get the DNA results back. And there was no apology.
Giraldo’s immigration case is still pending and he fears a deportation order. He is newly married to a U.S. citizen and on the verge of becoming a father.
For those who have worked hard to build the confidence of immigrant communities in police, Giraldo’s predicament undercuts that relationship. The City wants immigrants to contact the police if they see something wrong from a suspicious package in the subway and illegal guns to domestic assaults and missing people- without fearing deportation.
It only takes a high-profile mistake to send tremors throughout vulnerable communities. The police commissioner needs to come out and reassure immigrants that the NYPD is here to help, not ruin people’s lives. The NYPD and prosecutors should also push immigration to dismiss Giraldo’s case.
