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Suffolk Police memos raise more questions on hate crime reporting policy

Posted December 17, 2008 by Patrick Young, Esq.

I have lately obtained two written directives over the signature of Police Commissioner Dormer on immgration status, and they raise more questions than they answer.
As you may know, a few days ago I asked the Suffolk Police for their policy regarding Police/ICE cooperation. After the murder of Marcelo Lucero, the police had assured the media that they don’t ask crime victims about their immigration status, implying that immigrant community fears of going to the police were not well-founded. This, of course, seemed to contradict those statements of Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, made at the time that he was trying to have his police deputized as immigration officers, when Levy essentially said that immigration violations were a legitimate reason for arresting immigrants.
As I blogged over the weekend, the police said they would not make their policies available to me. This was a little strange, since a department interested in assuaging the concerns of immigrants would be expected to provide something in writing that immigrants could rely on for protection if they came forward with info on hate crimes. And, lets face it, unlike other police policies, this one can’t be used by evildoers to craft a crime to evade the police.
The versions of the two documents that I received pertaining to “immigration confidentiality” do not lend themselves to full reproduction, I would have to type each one out individually, so I will summarize them and reprint selected passages. But I first wanted to point out the dates on which each memo was promulgated.
The first is a Department Memorandum Order 08-282 “Immigration Status and Equal Service to the Public”. This order was issued on 10/20/08, according to the document. The fact that it came out a little more than two weeks before the Lucero attack seems interesting. A colleague of mine, Nadia Marin of the Workplace Project, told me today that shortly after Lucero’s death she had spoken to a deputy precinct commander to ask for a written confidentiality policy, and she had been told by him that he didn’t have one. So one wonders if this memo had even been distributed before the murder of Marcelo Lucero.
The first paragraph of the memo is some boilerplate about equal justice, but the second paragraph gives some indication that the memo was written in response to some sweeps in Brentwood and Farmingville by the police that were termed borderline racial profiling by the Suffolk DA. But these events occured a full year earlier. Interesting that the memo in response to these abuses was “issued” coincidentally right “before” the Lucero murder.
The third paragraph of Order 08-282 says that “The fact that an individual is suspected of being an undocumented alien alone shall not be the basis for contact, detention or arrest. Members of the Service shall not conduct sweeps or other concentrated efforts to detain suspected undocumented aliens.” While not admitting that the Brentwood/Farmingville stops were anti-immigrant sweeps, reading paragraph 3 does raise that question.
The remainder of the memo discusses forms to use “when the officer knows or reasonably suspects the defendant is not a U.S. citizen” and how to detain persons wanted by ICE for eventual deportation.
Nothing in the memo prohibits questioning crime victims about their immigration status or communicating such information to ICE.
A second Department Memorandum Order Number 08-320 was issued on 11/20/08, a little over a week after the Lucero killing. It was clearly issued in response to the growing media storm around Suffolk’s failure to adequately address hate crimes. It is brief, and I’ll reprint a substantial part. Here it is:
This Memorandum is a reminder to all Members of the Service as to the content of the Department Memorandum 08-282 issued October 20, 2008 titled “immigration Status and Equal Service to the Public.”
Specifically, members are reminded that the immigration status of a crime victim or complainant shall have no bearing on the investigation of said crime or complaint.
Members are prohibited from inquiring as to the immigration status of any crime victim or complainant.
Members should take care to review the entire content of Department Memorandum 08-282 and Department General Order 08-47 for the Department’s policies regarding immigration status.
Normally I don’t pay too much attention to the paragraph structure of memos, but here there is something quite interesting. The first two paragraphs discuss Order Number 08-282. Paragraph 2 “reminds” the police that immigration status has no bearing on the investigation of a crime.
Paragraph 3 instructs officers not to inquire into immigration status.
Get that? It doesn’t “remind” the officers of this. Maybe because 08-282 did not prohibit such inquiries.
Now I can’t say for sure when Suffolk adopted a policy of not asking crime victims about their immigration status. Maybe it was before November 20, 2008. Maybe not. I don’t understand why the police will not release documents to community groups establishing a chronology for public examination.
Also, if the November 20 memo is the only memo on this issue, it is so sketchy that I am left wondering what it covers. So too, no doubt, will immigrants reporting crimes.
Clarity is needed and it can only be provided by the police.