The 34-year-old NYPD officer who fatally shot Ramarley Graham has received close to $25,000 in automatic pay raises in the three plus years since he killed the unarmed teen inside his Bronx apartment. Officer Richard Haste made over $88,000 for the fiscal year, up more than $20,000 from the year Graham was gunned down.
Reports Huffington Post:
Al O’Leary, spokesman for the city’s largest police union, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, said Haste’s raises were automatic.
“Any raises that any police officer, detective, sergeant on up to captain gets is because it is contractually mandated as a result of an agreement between the city and the union that represents the title,” O’Leary said. “So suggesting that there is something special or unusual in any raise for any non-managerial member of the NYPD, like Haste, is simply wrong. Everyone in that same title with similar time on the job (longevity pay) got what he got. That’s the way it works.”
(Three black members of the NYPD’s motor fleet division filed a lawsuit against the department earlier this year, saying they were denied promotions and raises that were given to their white colleagues.)
Haste earned a salary of approximately $76,000 in the 2015 fiscal year, according to Empire’s records. He also received over $2,000 in overtime pay and $10,147 in “other pay,” which Tim Hoefer, executive director of the Empire Center, said is a “designation for which there can be dozens, if not hundreds of categories, ranging from uniform allotment, to car allotment, to back pay, or cash out.”
In fiscal year 2012, Haste earned a salary of over $53,000, plus nearly $9,000 in overtime and close to $4,800 in other pay.
“This is what you do?” said Graham’s father about the raises. “Reward these guys for killing innocent people? How is this possible? I’d like to ask the current mayor, the city council, the commissioner: How is this possible?”
Haste has been remanded to desk duty since shooting 18-year-old Graham to death in 2012. He initially pleaded not guilty to manslaughter charges, though a grand jury opted not to indict.
The Department of Justice is still investigating Graham’s death.
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