A police officer was accused of spying for China. The charges were dropped, but the NYPD fired him

Baimadajie Angwang thought he would be hired back into his dream job as a New York City police officer after federal prosecutors dropped criminal charges alleging he spied for China. Instead, he fights the police commissioner’s decision to fire him.

In a recently made public decision, Commissioner Edward Caban ordered Angwang’s immediate dismissal on January 29. He said he ignored an order to submit to questioning by internal affairs investigators on the espionage case.

Angwang, 37, said he declined to appear before investigators last year on the advice of his lawyers because the NYPD refused to give them department documents ahead of the interrogation that would have allowed them to prepare. Now he is considering taking the commissioner to court over his dismissal.

“It’s extremely disappointing,” Angwang told The Associated Press in a telephone interview on Wednesday. “I must keep fighting, not just for myself, for anyone who has been wrongly accused in the past and who is receiving the unjust treatment I have received at this time, or for potential victims of discrimination in the future. …I will not give up until I find justice.

Police officials declined to comment and referred the AP to Caban’s written decision to fire Angwang.

“The Department is a paramilitary organization, and its failure to obey and comply with questions in an official investigation undermines its ability to carry out its mission,” Caban wrote.

Angwang, who was born in Tibet and granted asylum in the US in his teens, was arrested by federal agents in September 2020, accused of providing information about New York’s Tibetan community to the Chinese consulate in New York. He denied the charges but spent six months in detention before being released on bail pending trial.

In January 2023, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn suddenly dropped the charges. They did not fully explain why, saying only that they had discovered new information and were acting “in the interests of justice.” Prosecutors have still not explained their decision.

Angwang, who also served in the U.S. Marines and deployed to Afghanistan, said he believes he has become involved in the Trump administration’s efforts to root out Chinese espionage in U.S. institutions. He claims there is racism against people with Chinese ties.

In firing Angwang, Caban opted for a harsher sentence than what was recommended in November by an NYPD disciplinary judge, who held a hearing on the firing and listened to testimony and arguments from both sides. The administrative judge, Vanessa Facio-Lince, ruled that Angwang had violated department rules by disobeying the order to submit to internal affairs.

However, Facio-Lince said he should not be fired after citing his good record as a police officer and being praised by his superiors. Instead, she recommended that Angwang be offered an alternative means of leaving the department so that he could negotiate some conditions for his departure, including partial retirement benefits.

Angwang’s attorney, Michael Bloch, said even the judge’s proposal did not comply with the department’s disciplinary guidelines. Bloch said the maximum penalty Angwang should have received was a 20-day suspension. Bloch said there have been many other officers who committed more serious misconduct and were allowed to keep their jobs despite administrative law judges recommending their dismissal.

For Angwang, losing the job has been painful. He said his desire to become a police officer began years ago when an NYPD officer was nice enough to give him directions when he got lost on the subway. Before his arrest in 2020, he served at a Queens police station as a community liaison officer.

“Every time I could help someone, I’m the happiest person in the world,” he said. “And now, with this decision, I cannot continue to serve the community as a police officer.”

He said it was ironic that the NYPD fired an officer who immigrated to the U.S. and was supported by the immigrant community as the department struggles to make the force more diverse.

“I just want people to be aware that I served in the Marines as an immigrant. I went to fight. “I went to Afghanistan,” he said. ‘I could become a police officer. I could become a community affairs officer. I was able to build a bridge between the underserved community and the NYPD, which has never happened in the past. I received a lot of support. … And now, unfortunately, the NYPD has ended the opportunity between the NYPD and the community.”