A New York City housing inspector was suspended without pay for using a racial slur to refer to three Vietnamese tenants in East Side, Manhattan, ABC7 reports. The slur appeared on an official letter sent from the city to the residents following a visit from that same inspector concerning complaints about the building’s heating and hot water.
“Even if the blame lies with the inspector, this is a letter from the city, someone has to print it out,” tenant Duc Pham told ABC7. “Someone has to fold it and mail it, so clearly there was no oversight there was no checking.”
According to the residents, their interaction with the inspector during his visit was relatively normal. “We let him in, we didn’t have a lot of conversation, we didn’t talk much, he was very polite,” Pham told the New York Post. “It was super quick, less than 30 minutes.”
Pham said that he suspected the racial slur was used as a manner of address since he and his roommates had not told the inspector their names.
Since the circulation of the racist letter on the Internet, the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development has suspended the inspector. It has also reached out to the tenants to extend an apology.
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