MELVINDALE, Mich. – A racial and religious discrimination lawsuit has been filed against the Melvindale Police Department.
Get this, the lawsuit was filed on behalf of someone inside the department.
It’s actually an officer who is on leave, but is technically still employed by the Melvindale Police Department.
The 11-page lawsuit filed says there’s an entire culture of discrimination.
“I mean, this is pretty disturbing stuff, and it calls into question anyone who’s had encounters with the Melvin Dale Police Department, who’s a minority.
It’s really disturbing. And what’s the most disturbing to me of all is that my client was targeted, not only for his race and religion, but for standing up for other races and religions, specifically African Americans, who were being discriminated against and targeted by the Melvin Dale Police Department where they’re using the words like, Let’s go hunt, referring to go and trying to target Black people”.
Attorney Jon Marko
Corporal Hassan Hammoud, a Lebanese Muslim officer, is named in the suit.
He says that for years, he was on the receiving end of racial and religious discrimination.
He claims he would try to report the behavior, only for the incidents to allegedly never be investigated.
“It was basically an open secret, and my client is going and complaining and trying to effectuate change because he knows what he’s seeing is wrong.
Rather than the Melvindale police department saying, You know what we need to look at this. What they do is they start targeting my client and ostracizing him and saying, if you’re not with our program, here you should go.
Attorney Jon Marko
Marko says that when he client didn’t play ball, he was harassed even more by fellow officers.
“Putting a pizza boy flyer in his mailbox, writing the words ‘go’, insinuating you should go be a pizza boy. Leave the department, leave us if you’re not down with our racism and discrimination,” Marko said.
It gets worse a crucifix and Bible was even said to have been placed in the officers mail box as well.
“We have the evidence. We have the crosses that they placed in his mailbox. We have the evidence, so they can’t come and say, ‘Oh, this didn’t happen because we can prove it did,’” Marko said.
While the department isn’t speaking right now, Local 4 has been informed that the police department plans to hold a press conference regarding the allegations in the coming week.
