Vile AI-doctored photos — including one depicting a cop in a KKK hood and another showing a man with a rifle standing over a gorilla — were among images allegedly passed around a specialized NYPD unit’s chat group, The Post has learned.
The chat group used by the Major Case Squad was titled “Major case – team building,” with the offensive images showing up in 2025 and 2026, according to a Manhattan Supreme Court discrimination lawsuit.
Veteran NYPD Det. Luis Pichardo, who was part of the Manhattan North Narcotics Bureau, sued the city and department bosses after allegedly being passed over for a spot on the new squad.
Pichardo, who is Hispanic, later learned of the racist imagery — and said it shows he was at a disadvantage from the start.
“These images reveal deliberate, open, celebratory racism shared among the officers who populated the very unit from which [Pichardo]was excluded,” according to the suit. “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.”
The NYPD said its Internal Affairs Bureau was investigating the posts.
“The NYPD has zero tolerance for hate and discrimination of any kind,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “These allegations are deeply disturbing and are under internal investigation.”
One of the snaps included a photo showing an officer at the Harlem unit sitting in a desk chair, wearing a white Ku Klux Klan-style hood superimposed over the cop’s head, Pichardo said in court papers.
The other, posted in February, showed a black colleague’s face superimposed onto a gun-wielding man who lifts the head of an ape that appears to be his prisoner. The photo includes the address 100 Centre Street, which is the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, where cops take prisoners.
Some in the chat group responded with “laughing emojis and affirmative commentary,” Pichardo said in the legal filing.
When one of the photos was posted on X Friday, a member of the chat group asked, “Why can’t there be 1-hour disappearing message?” he alleged in the lawsuit.
Pichardo, 41, was allegedly passed over for a position in the Major Case Squad despite having 1,000 arrests under his belt and 19 years on the job, he claimed.
His superiors said the detective was “too old” and claimed they “spoke a lot of English in the unit,” according to the suit filed by lawyer John Scola.
Pichardo, who came from the Dominican Republic when he was 12 and grew up in the Bronx, joined the NYPD in 2005 and worked in several specialized NYPD units, including anti-crime, frequently testifying in court cases in English, he said in court papers.
He decided to apply to the new squad, previously known as the Gang Unit, in 2025 with his partner, who is also Hispanic, and was interviewed by a panel of five white men, he said.
But the pair were told the unit could only take one of them and Pichardo stepped aside for his younger partner.
“If the Major Case Unit was filled based on merit, then [Pichardo] would have been selected,” according to the suit.
“Nobody at the NYPD knows the Trinitarios like I do,” Pichardo told The Post, referring to a gang active in the city.
Four white detectives allegedly with no experience in narcotics made the team, including Richard Shea, the son of former NYPD commissioner Dermott Shea, Pichardo claimed in the legal filing.
Pichardo’s discrimination complaints to his bosses were not reported to the NYPD’s Office of Equal Employment Opportunity until he told a Hispanic boss, according to the lawsuit.
One of the bosses named in court papers, Inspector Christopher Vacarro, “was visibly angry” after learning of the complaint and allegedly “was seen throwing and breaking things in his office,” according to the court papers.
Members of the Narcotics Bureau stopped talking to Pichardo and his overtime was cut — forcing him to retire in July 2025 to avoid a reduction in his pension, he alleged in the legal fiing.
The chat included numerous offensive posts.
“In December 2025, a Nazi Swastika was posted in the Major Case squad group chat,” according to the lawsuit, which did not include a photo of that post. “Members of the group chat laughed.”
Yet another member posted a YouTube video Jan. 6 titled “I exposed New Jersey’s Jewish Invasion.”
The post prompted a chat member to respond, “And we’re worried about Karens and snowballs.”
When police officers are “circulating Klan hood images” and “mocking minorities” it “taints every arrest,” Scola said.
“Pichardo’s career was destroyed because of his race, but his bravery gives others a chance to speak up,” the attorney said.
Pichardo, who is seeking unspecified damages, filed the suit in hopes that in the future officers would be judged by their work, he said.
“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.”