AN EX-NYPD cop claims he was subjected to such virulent attacks on his Jewish faith by fellow cops at the World Trade Center police command that he resigned from the force, the Daily News has learned.
That the police station is located on hallowed ground where more than 2,000 people were killed in the 9/11 attack apparently did not deter the cops who allegedly vandalized David Attali’s locker with hate-filled messages, greeted him with a “Heil Hitler” salute and called him a host of anti-Semitic slurs including “dirty Jew.”
“Everybody messes around but these guys were out of control,” Attali told The News Tuesday in an exclusive interview. “The World Trade Center is someplace special, sacred, it’s American history. But it didn’t seem to affect these people.”
Attali, 31, is suing the city and five cops involved in the denigration that he says included sending him text messages containing the slurs and even a photo of Adolf Hitler. He is also suing four supervisors for refusing his request for a transfer and allowing the hostilities to continue.
The six-year veteran reported the harassment to the NYPD Office of Equal Employment Opportunity last May, but Attali did not disclose to investigators that he had copies of text messages and secretly recorded audio to back up his claims.
Attali said he was hoping the sight of his locker plastered with supermarket advertisements for pork products, a newspaper headline that read: “Hail Hitler” and a swastika carved in a sticker would have been sufficient grounds to approve a transfer — but he was wrong. “He wasn’t looking to get anyone in trouble but he was drowning … and he had to get out of there,” said Attali’s lawyer Rocco Avallone.
Unable to deal with the further stress of being shunned and harassed, Attali resigned in August. Several months after he left, Attali was informed that EEO had confirmed that his locker was vandalized but the allegations of verbal harassment were unsubstantiated apparently because the cops denied it, according to Avallone.
Deputy Chief Kim Royster, an NYPD spokeswoman, said the investigations are confidential.
Today, the Brooklyn-born Orthodox Jew, who has dual citizenship in the U.S. and Israel, works as a driver for a company that inspects water meters.
The harassment, he said, may have been motivated in part to his being given Saturdays off to observe the Jewish Sabbath.
In early 2013, a handwritten note was attached to Attali’s locker stating, “This sign is covered with bacon grease. If anyone touches it he will go straight to hell,” according to the lawsuit filed in Manhattan Federal Court.
Attali said he confided only in his wife. His wife, whose grandfather died in a concentration camp, was appalled by what she heard.
Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association lawyer Steve Worth, who represented the accused cops during the EEO investigation, said Attari made it clear he wanted off the job. “The way he did it was to bring false claims against these officers and to bring a lawsuit to get money on the way out the door,” Worth said.
