White NYC parole officer sues bosses who called her 'snowcone' and ignored rape threats against her
MANHATTAN, NEW YORK CITY: A white parole officer in Brooklyn claims she was racially discriminated against - by colleagues who called her a "snowcone" and by supervisors who made it "impossible" for her to perform her duties. Samantha Rys, 51, sued her two supervisors, Sabrina Davis and Tanya Johnson, who are both black, in Manhattan federal court this week, claiming they failed to act to protect her after one of her parolees threatened to rape, kill, and dismember her last year.
Rys claimed that as soon as she started working as a parole officer in May 2021, her coworkers treated her with shock and prejudice. According to court documents, one once advised her that she required a spray tan and hat because white people posted to the Red Hook area of Brooklyn only "came to arrest people or take their child," New York Post reported.
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According to the documents, Samantha Rys' coworkers also warned her that, due to her race, she would not be able to do her duties safely. The white Brooklyn parole officer, however, contends that it was her superiors who fostered a risky work environment by doing nothing when one of her parolees—a man convicted of attempted murder—began to threaten her. The parolee, known only as "AR" in court documents, began informing Rys that he would murder her and her family in June 2021.
The complaint and Rys' attorney, Michael Sussman, claim that Rys had already requested a transfer after her coworkers made her feel uneasy about her race and that she did so again after the threats were made against her. However, nothing was done. "In this particular situation she was made to feel like she doesn’t matter,' Sussman told New York Post.
The Office of Special Investigation recommended that AR report to a different location in August 2021 after determining that the parolee posed a credible threat to Rys and her family; however, this recommendation was never followed, according to court documents. The lawsuit states that Rys finally made the decision to resign because she was anxious about her managers' failure to relocate either her or her parolee, as they had done in the past when any of her non-white employees had received threats. "When it came to this feeling that you’re in danger and nobody here gives a rats a– about me," Sussman stated. "I think that was just the final straw for her." As reported by New York Post, unspecified damages are demanded in the complaint.