By Jon Yates, The Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO -- One is a tactical officer with the Chicago Police Department who says he was called a “rock thrower,” a “terrorist” and words much worse.
The other was an officer in Decatur, Ga., who claims his superiors called him “Taliban” and once distributed his picture at roll call on a wanted poster, his face superimposed over that of a World Trade Center terrorist.
Now, both Nail Majid and Mohamed Hyath are suing their respective police departments, claiming discrimination based on the fact they are Muslims and, in Majid’s case, also Arab American.
Those who track Muslims and Arab Americans in law enforcement say the cases, if proven, are isolated incidents, and say there is no evidence of widespread discrimination against such officers in U.S. police stations.
Still, the two cases, along with five other complaints filed with the Department of Justice on behalf of federal law enforcement employees, are enough to cause concern, civil rights activists and law enforcement officers said. They come as Muslims across the nation are making an increasing number of complaints to the Council on American-Islamic Relations and other Arab and Muslim civil rights groups.
“It’s very disturbing,” said Hussein Ibish, spokesman for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Washington. “You expect better, you deserve better, when you’re talking about agencies that are supposed to uphold the law.”
In the Chicago case and the one in Georgia, the men who filed the lawsuits claim their superiors participated in the harassment or turned a blind eye while it occurred. In both cases, the men said they complained but no action was taken.
“I felt like they were bullies at school,” said Hyath, 32, who grew up in suburban Atlanta and joined the Decatur police force several months after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “With Decatur, it’s just a good old boys mentality. Everybody knew each other; they were all hunting buddies. They all knew what was going on, but they were just quiet about it.”
In the Chicago case, Nail Majid, 33, says he started at the police department in November 1999 and endured “offensive and intimidating stories” about Arabs on an almost daily basis, according to his federal lawsuit.
Majid, a Palestinian American and a Muslim, says that other police officers made fun of his religious practices, his holidays, the food he ate, the way his name was pronounced and the fact that he could speak Arabic.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he says in the lawsuit, “the name-calling and discrimination ... increased dramatically.”
At one point, Majid claims, a police sergeant walked up to him and gave him a box cutter, said, “Here’s a box cutter for you. Take it with you when you fly again.”
Majid said the comment was a reference to the terrorists who hijacked planes using box cutters, then flew them into the World Trade Center.
Majid’s attorney, Keith Hunt, said the nation’s police forces have dealt with issues of discrimination against blacks, Hispanics and women. Since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, he said, Arabs have been a more prominent target.
“It’s the same old game. It’s just a different target group,” Hunt said.
Jennifer Hoyle, spokeswoman for the Chicago’s Law Department, said her office was recently served with the lawsuit, and could not comment on the allegations.
Zyad Hasan, a 12-year veteran with the Chicago Police Department and president of the 30-member Chicago-based Arab-American Police Association, said he has heard of no other allegations of harassment. Some members of the group, he said, have complained they were not promoted when they thought they should have been, but none have reported the kind of discrimination Majid alleges.
Hasan said that immediately after Sept. 11, some high-ranking members of the police department asked Arab-American officers to come to them if they experienced any problems.
Detroit Police Officer Samer Jaafar, president of the 168-member Arab-American Law Enforcement Association, said he has heard of complaints from Arab-American officers about discrimination, but did not know of any lawsuits or formal actions.
Neither the Department of Justice nor the largest police union, the National Fraternal Order of Police, keeps track of the number of Arab Americans and Muslims on police forces across the nation or on the number of discrimination lawsuits filed on their behalf.
But attorneys who specialize in discrimination law say allegations of harassment among Arab-American and Muslim law enforcement agents have increased in recent years.
Joe Mansour, 33, a federal corrections officer, filed a claim last month with the Department of Justice saying he has been discriminated against at the United States penitentiary in Lee County, Va.
Mansour, who was born in Lebanon and became a naturalized citizen at age 5, had no problems with fellow corrections officers until after the Sept. 11 attacks, said his attorney, Mathew B. Tully.
After the terrorist attacks in 2001, however, Tully said things changed.
Tully, who works for the Fraternal Order of Police’s Legal Defense Fund, said he has filed complaints with the Department of Justice on behalf of four other Arab-American federal law enforcement agents, all of whom claim post-Sept. 11 harassment. The five complaints are pending.
“Many of these people after Sept. 11 sucked it up,” Tully said. “After about a year and a half, that’s when they started to say enough is enough.”
Tully said one of Mansour’s superior’s called him a “terrorist,” and other co-workers made similar derogatory comments.
Mansour is pushing his case because “he wants to bring to light the harassment that Arab Americans in law enforcement are receiving,” Tully said.
Hyath, the police officer in Georgia, said he, too, wants his case known.
“I’m a U.S. citizen. I’m not fresh off the boat,” said Hyath, whose ancestors are from Mauritius, an island off Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. “I consider myself as American as the next guy. I’m not a terrorist.”
Hyath said the final straw was when he came in for roll call and saw a superior handing out pictures of him on a wanted poster.
After several more months of problems, he quit.
“I felt they weren’t taking it seriously. I felt if I went back, I’d be labeled a whistle-blower,” Hyath said. “So I turned in my letter of resignation.”
Decatur City Manager Peggy Merriss said Hyath resigned before an investigation of his complaints could be completed. Merriss said the investigation found that two officers made derogatory comments and handed out the wanted sign. Both officers were reprimanded, she said.
“They shouldn’t have done it, plain and simple,” Merriss said. “It was very disappointing. But it was as disappointing to me that he quit before he gave us a chance to fix things.”
Hyath has since become a volunteer police officer in nearby Cumming, Ga., where he said he has encountered no problems. He hopes to become a full-time employee when a position opens up in January.
“They’ve been very supportive,” he said.