'NY Post' Reporter Who Filed Racial Profiling Lawsuit Fired For Conflict

By: Joe Strupp Less than two weeks after filing a lawsuit against New York City police claiming he was the subject of racial profiling, a New York Post reporter has been fired, according to the New York Daily News.

The Daily News, in a Monday story, reported that Leonardo Blair, 28, a freelance reporter since May 2007, was let go days after his lawsuit was filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union on his behalf. E&P first broke the story of the lawsuit May 7, just hours after it was filed.

The News reported that: "The Jamaican-born reporter was let go, in part, because the paper's editors were caught off guard by the suit he filed," adding that "In a first-person feature that ran in the Post in December, Blair detailed how two cops stopped and searched him near his Bronx home moments after he parked his car on the street."

Howard Rubenstein, a Post spokesman, said the paper let Blair go because his lawsuit against the police created a conflict of interest with his assignment as a freelancer covering the police department.

"The freelance reporter blindsided the Post and didn?t tell them about the lawsuit," Rubenstein told E&P late Monday afternoon. "As a freelancer, he solely interacted with the police - the lawsuit created a conflict of interest. You can?t cover the police department if you are suing the police department."

Asked why Blair was not reassigned to another beat, Rubenstein said: "They hired him to do that and that is what they wanted him to do."

The lawsuit was filed on the same day that a New York Post editorial claimed racial profiling was not a growing problem. The issue was raised again after statistics released earlier this month revealed that New York City police stopped more people on the streets during the first three months of 2008 than during any quarter in the six years the police department has reported such data.

The Post editorial stated: "Police overreach? Well, consider this: Last week, a killer said to be wearing a 'Team Fresh' gang T-shirt fatally stabbed an 18-year-old who was standing his own front porch. Isn't it a pity that the killer didn't encounter a stop-and-frisk team on his way to the scene of the crime?" the Post editorial said, in part. "Taken another way: How many young men didn't fall victim to weapons confiscated by the teams? A lot, we'd guess. If cops stand down, as critics demand, it'll be welcome back crime and chaos. And good-bye, peaceful New York."

Blair filed the lawsuit in U.S District Court in Manhattan, according to a copy provided by the New York Civil Liberties Union. The complaint claimed Blair was subjected to racial profiling while walking from his car to his home in the Bronx on Nov. 28, 2007.

A Jamaican immigrant and graduate of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, Blair claimed he was harassed by police while walking along the street with his wife. In the lawsuit, he contended that Officer William Castillo, one of several defendants named in the suit, stopped him due to his dark skin color and without cause. "Officer Castillo angrily demanded of Mr. Blair whether he spoke English," the suit stated. "Mr. Blair, surprised by Officer Castillo's mocking tone, replied under his breath in Spanish that he did not."

Eventually, after being frisked, Blair was arrested, the complaint stated. "Mr. Blair was not engaged in any illegal or improper activity, and nothing in his behavior or conduct would provide the basis for reasonable suspicion that he was engaging in any wrongdoing," the lawsuit contended.

Blair was issued two summonses, one alleging he disobeyed a lawful order and the other alleging he made ?unreasonable noise.? A judge dismissed both summonses on Feb. 8, NYCLU stated.