‘What I’ve been saying all along’: Officer suing SJPD for Islamophobia weighs in on new racism scandal

The surfacing of racist and anti-Muslim Facebook posts by active and retired San Jose police officers this past weekend was not by itself a shock to Officer Nabil Haidar.

What surprised him was the near-immediate condemnation by public leaders including the police chief.

Haidar, who is currently on medical leave, said he remembered thinking: Where was that when he objected to his own anti-Muslim harassment in the same police department?

“This is what I have been saying all along,” he said in an interview. Instead, the department “refused to believe me, (and) only enabled and empowered this online racism and Islamophobia.”

The Lebanese-American officer sued the department in 2018, alleging he was the target of anti-Muslim remarks and insults that escalated after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. He asserts that the discriminatory comments associated him with ISIS, the Taliban and car bombings, and that he was referred to with slurs including “suicide bomber,” “bin Laden,” and “sleeper cell.”

In his lawsuit, which is still making its way through Santa Clara County Superior Court, he calls particular attention to a November 2017 police briefing, when a captain was recognizing veterans in the room and a sergeant allegedly stated, “Captain, you forgot to mention Nabil. He is an ISIS veteran. He was with ISIS for two years.”

“The officers who harassed me are still walking the streets,” Haidar said. “What’s the difference between them and what is happening now?”

What is happening now is fallout from an article posted on Medium Friday by an anonymous blogger, who identified as the partner of a current SJPD officer and posted screenshots of comments by members of the deactivated 10-7ODSJ Facebook group — made up of active and retired SJPD officers — sharing racist comments, including about the Black Lives Matter movement and an image the blog author argues equates Muslims with terrorists.

In one public post, an active officer who subscribed to the group wrote “black lives don’t really matter” while commenting about shootings in Chicago, and while responding to a thread about a Muslim woman whose hijab was pulled off by a Ventura County Sheriff’s Office deputy, wrote “Hell, I would have pulled it over her face.” A post by a retired officer suggested using hijabs as nooses.

Four officers who were outed in the Medium article have been placed on leave pending a department investigation that the FBI has been called to assist.

SJPD responded to Haidar’s new comments about his discrimination first by parsing it out from the Facebook posts. Officers who worked with Haidar — speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid legal retaliation — joined police officials in strongly objecting to his account of alleged harassment, and say Haidar had long made self-deprecating jokes about himself and terrorism, and that he would similarly joke about colleagues.

At the time Haidar filed an initial claim with the city in May 2018, some inside the department contended that Haidar was retaliating to his being disciplined in 2017 after he was found to have used “several unflattering racial stereotypes” while responding to a police call involving a Vietnamese woman. The connection of Haidar to this case, which was reported in an annual report by the city’s independent police auditor that did not name the officer, is the basis of an allegation in Haidar’s lawsuit that confidential personnel information was leaked to undercut his discrimination claim.

Chief Eddie Garcia took issue with Haidar’s assertion that SJPD did not act on his complaint.

“It wasn’t swept under the rug. It was investigated thoroughly and individuals received significant discipline,” Garcia said, before citing personnel privacy restrictions in refraining from specifying who and how they were punished. “We took a lot of action then, and we’re going to take a lot of action this time.”

Garcia said he plans to meet with the South Bay Islamic Association this week and welcomes an offer from the San Jose-based Islamic Networks Group to conduct Islamaphobia training for officers. Adnan Rasheed, a board member for the SBIA, credited the department for mosque visits and cultural-sensitivity training but was also critical of the benched officers who “acted in disrespectful, ignorant and racist ways.”

“Just as we Muslims have always been so appreciative and fortunate to have the support and friendship of many of the officers from SJPD, to have them stand up for us, defend us … many of us intend to do the same for the department,” Rasheed wrote in an email, saying he was speaking for himself and not the association. “Because not all officers are murderers, racists or bigots … as not all Muslims are terrorists.”

Zahra Billoo, executive director for the Bay Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said authorities’ swift rebuke of the Facebook posts was compelling and reassuring, but emphasized that the scandal raised myriad questions that won’t be easily answered, and that patience will wear thin just as swiftly.

“It’s six days later, and they’re not terminated,” Billoo said. “What does it mean to say the right thing, and do the right thing?”

Billoo said she is also troubled by how the police group had scores of members who “looked the other way” upon seeing the racist material. She added that she was disturbed that one of the active officers put on leave was once tasked with conducting bias training.

“Who did he train, and how do we undo the damage?” she said. “How am I supposed to urge my community, that looks like me, to call this department?”

Haidar points to the current scandal as evidence that not enough action was taken by the police department if officers still felt comfortable spouting the bigoted rhetoric.

“They enabled those to continue to say those kinds of racial slurs and the memes, because there were not repercussions when I came forward,” he said. “Now it’s time for him to move the needle, and say, ‘This kind of thing came to light two-and-a-half years ago and we dropped the ball on it, and we have to make it right.’ “