DEA Recruits Cite 'Monkey Noises' Among Claims of Racism
Source: AP News
1 hr ago. By Jim Mustian.
At the Drug Enforcement Administration's Training Academy in Virginia last year, an instructor on the firing range called out a name that was shared by two trainees, one Black and one white. When both responded, the white instructor clarified, "I meant the monkey."
That behavior, as alleged in an internal complaint, didn't stop there. The instructor also was accused of going on the loudspeaker in the tower of the outdoor firing range to taunt black trainees by making "monkey noises."
"We were like, 'It's 2019. That shouldn't even be a thing that we're dealing with,'" said Derek Moise, who did not hear the noises himself but recalled the discomfort they caused his fellow Black trainees who did. "Everybody knows what those sounds and noises stand for."
As the DEA continues a decades-long struggle to diversify its ranks, it has received a string of recent complaints describing a culture of racial discrimination at its training academy in which minorities are singled out, derided with insults and consistently held to a higher standard than their white counterparts, according to interviews with former recruits and law enforcement officials and records obtained by The Associated Press...
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/race-and-ethnicity-virginia-2b38a1ab4553e6a1575f5deb4fbcf885
A Black recruit was told his skin color made him a sure candidate for undercover work. A Hispanic woman, chatting in Spanish with a fellow trainee, was told to "speak English, you are in the United States." At least two complaints prompted internal DEA investigations, one of which remains ongoing.
The complaints are not typically made public and provide a rare window into the frustration minorities have stated about their treatment at DEA since the filing of a 1977 civil rights lawsuit that remains unresolved despite a series of court orders. One federal judge ruled that DEA had run afoul of court orders intended to remove subjectivity from agent promotions last year.
The DEA, like other federal law enforcement agencies has struggled to fill its ranks with minorities. The agency has 4,400 special agents, and just 8% are Black and 10% are Hispanic.
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