A former New York City cop is suing his former employer and the city after he learned that members of an NYPD unit that he applied to join were trading racist AI-generated images in a group chat.
NYPD Detective Luis Pichardo filed a lawsuit accusing the city and the police department of discrimination, according to the complaint obtained by the New York Post.
According to the complaint, some members of one of the agency’s units, the Major Case Squad, were part of a group chat titled “Major case – team building,” in which they exchanged offensive, racist images in 2025 and 2026.
Pichardo’s attorney, John A. Scola, posted some of the images on social media.
One depicts a police officer sitting at a desk, donning a Ku Klux Klan hood.
Another, reportedly sent in February, superimposed an officer’s face onto a man wielding a rifle in one hand and lifting a gorilla’s head with the other. The image’s backdrop appears to show residents of an African village.
The address of the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, where law enforcement takes suspects, is also featured in the image.
According to the lawsuit, a Nazi swastika was also posted in the group chat in December 2025.
In response to the image, “members of the group chat laughed,” the suit says.
Weeks later, on Jan. 6, the suit states a chat member posted a YouTube video titled, “I exposed New Jersey’s Jewish Invasion.”
Another member allegedly responded, “And we’re worried about Karens and snowballs.”
Pichardo’s complaint states that some group members responded to the images with “laughing emojis and affirmative commentary.”
“These images reveal deliberate, open, celebratory racism shared among the officers who populated the very unit from which [Pichardo] was excluded,” the suit reportedly states. “That this imagery was circulated casually among NYPD detectives in 2025 reveals a workplace where anti-black and anti-minority sentiment was not merely present but normalized.”
Pichardo, who is Hispanic, was a police officer for 20 years with more than 1,000 arrests on his professional record.
According to his attorney, Pichardo applied to the Major Case Squad, but his application was rejected. He was allegedly told that he was “too old” and that squad members “speak a lot of English” on the team.
The 41-year-old former cop moved to the Bronx from the Dominican Republic when he was 12. After joining the NYPD in 2005, he joined several units, including anti-crime and narcotics. The complaint states that he has testified in English in multiple court cases.
The lawsuit alleges that the police department cast him and his decades-long tenure aside for less experienced white detectives who didn’t even have to interview to earn a spot on the team.
When Pichardo tried to join the squad, previously known as the Gang Squad, he and his younger Hispanic partner were interviewed by a panel of five white men. The panel said only one officer could be assigned to the unit, and Pichardo allowed his partner to take the spot.
“If the Major Case Unit was filled based on merit, then [Pichardo] would have been selected,” the suit states.
Four white detectives with no narcotics experience, including the son of a former NYPD commissioner, also made the team.
Pichardo reportedly complained about the treatment, but his complaints were never forwarded to the Office of Equal Opportunity Employment until he spoke to a Hispanic supervisor.
Still, he faced retaliation, according to his attorneys.
His overtime was reportedly cut in half, and he was forced to retire in July 2025 to avoid a cut to his pension. Members of the Narcotics Bureau even cut off communication with him before he was forced out.
He said he later learned of the misconduct on the squad and the racist images being sent through the group chat.
Pichardo is seeking unspecified damages. He hopes the suit will pave the way for officers to be judged on merit.
“It’s not going to be based on your color,” he said. “It’s going to be based on your experience. That’s why I’m doing this.”
The NYPD said its Internal Affairs Bureau is investigating the group chat.
“The NYPD has zero tolerance for hate and discrimination of any kind,” a police spokesperson said in a statement. “These allegations are deeply disturbing and are under internal investigation.”
