By KAVITA MOKHA
May 11, 2008
A white cop who faces possible disciplinary action for ordering a black off-duty police chief out of his car in Queens is no racist, his family said yesterday.
"He is not at all prejudiced," Officer Michael Granahan's mother said outside the family home in Dix Hills, LI.
She declined to discuss the incident further, stating, "We want to see how this plays out."
Granahan was placed on modified duty after the May 2 incident in which he and another plainclothes officer approached NYPD Chief Douglas Zeigler's car parked in front of a hydrant.
When one of them saw Zeigler's service weapon, he yelled "Gun!" and the officers raised their weapons and ordered Zeigler out of the car.
Zeigler - wearing his badge around his neck - said, "Don't you know who I am?" He then slapped away Granahan's hand reaching to look at the ID.
Zeigler, 60, is in charge of the Community Affairs Bureau - making him the highest-ranking black officer on the force.
The NYPD has been accused of racial profiling in its practice of stopping and frisking people on the street - the majority of them black or Hispanic.
