NYPD Detective Says She Faced ‘Unbearable’ Discrimination and Harassment as a Black Single Mother: A Lawsuit

An NYPD detective faced sexism and racism on a daily basis, including being called “a savage” — and was bizarrely taunted with the color green for getting into a fight with an Irish higher-up, a lawsuit alleges .

“I wanted to be a detective for so long, and now that I am a detective, I feel like I should have just left my job,” 16-year department veteran and prosecutor Annaruth Legare recently told The Post.

The harassment began about a year ago, when the 38-year-old single mother requested an accommodation to drop her two boys, ages 10 and 14, off at school in the morning, according to her lawsuit filed Thursday.

Legare was soon bombarded with threats, racist images and comments that spanned two districts, court papers say.

The detective says in her suit that she worked as a regular officer in the 123rd Precinct on Staten Island for almost a decade and a half and that she enjoyed it.

But when she started training to become a detective there in 2023, she suddenly found herself dealing with a whole new group of colleagues – and being treated in a way that was different from her first fifteen years with the NYPD.

For example, after challenging a fellow intern for taking shortcuts in a kidnapping investigation, he called her “a savage and an animal,” her lawsuit says.

After becoming a detective in October 2023, she was repeatedly forced to work early morning hours despite previously receiving accommodations to take her children to school, the lawsuit said.

Legare, the only black detective in the police department, was pushed into details because of her race, her lawsuit says, noting that other mother detectives were given exemptions.

“I took this job to help people and help others, not to go to work and be mistreated and discriminated against,” she told The Post.

In another incident, when her son had an emergency at school, Legare’s supervising sergeant told her she still had to assist in the arrest of another detective and that she could not leave until the end of the day, according to her suit .

Legare tried to file a complaint and contact her union representative, but that was just the beginning of what would become a daily barrage of racist and sexist torment toward her, she said.

At the office, her new colleagues started wearing green – in solidarity with the Irish-American sergeant, her suit says.

When someone made a horrific racist call to the department about inserting metal rods into black women, the sergeant laughed, the court papers allege.

“That’s the Tottenville I know,” the sergeant said, according to the lawsuit.

The next day, a racist image of a New York Knicks player was posted in the police station, the complaint said.

The “ongoing coordinated harassment” against Legare only increased, including having all-green thumbtacks, green folders and green lights placed throughout the office, clovers being placed on her desk, and someone changing the color of her LED-backlit keyboard every day changed to green. documents say.

It continued even when she was transferred to Staten Island’s 122nd District, she told The Post.

Someone there tried to change the color of her keyboard to green, “but they couldn’t figure it out,” Legare said.

Legare decided to take a week’s leave “because seven months of harassment was just too much,” but when she returned to work on June 26, it only took a day before she took another leave of absence, she said.

She was hospitalized for more than a week last month after a psychiatric break due to the torture and remains on leave, according to her complaint.

She hasn’t worked since.

“The NYPD has consistently ignored complaints from officers reporting discrimination, allowing a culture of retaliation to flourish unchecked,” her attorney, John Scola, told The Post.

Both the city and the NYPD declined to comment on pending litigation, but police added that the agency “does not tolerate discrimination or sexual harassment.”