As hard as it is to believe in this day and age, it has been confirmed, the recording exist, and yes on Monday night a Dispatcher in the Public Safety Dispatch Center did use the "N' word over a police radio channel.
Mayor Segarra issued the following comment through his spokesperson this morning:
Mayor Segarra has a zero tolerance policy for usage of the "N" word or any other words that can be associated with hate speech for that matter. He has demanded a full investigation into the incident in order to determine an appropriate course of action.
Could his response be any more vanilla. Where is the outrage that a public servant can even have that word floating around in their mind and freely use it over the radio. I have said repeated ly that the dispatch Center under Mr. Jaffee is out of control. The main complaint at community meetings when the 911 Dispatch Center is mentioned is that Jaffe''s dispatchers are rude and seem not interested in resident's.
Now there are some good dispatchers that are great and committed to their jobs, but this incident can not be tolerated. At this point the Mayor's Office is not willing to share Mr.Jaffee's written response to the incident or the actual recording, even though they are technically public documents at this point.
I am told that Jaffee's response is lukewarm also. This can not be tolerated, the tone needs to be set right from the top, both from Segarra and Jaffe.
With Mayor Segarra, I am not sure zero tolerance means zero tolerance. Previously I had written about an employee who had made a sexual harassment complaint against a Department Head. The Department head came to work everyday for over a month, making the harassed employee have to deal with him everyday.
Only after the information and the complaint was posted here was the MHIS Director suspended. At the time Segarra said the department head was suspended due to the City's "Zero Tolerance" policy for sexual harassment. If zero tolerance means anything why wasn't he suspended the day the employee filed her complaint, not a month later?
Where is the dispatcher that used the "N"word. Still sitting behind a console in the dispatch Center ?
In a racially charged climate that recent court events have created, both the community as well as City employees need swift and decisive action from our "leaders" to send a strong message that racism or discrimination of any type will not and can not be tolerated