But as the only black man among the unit’s divers, Mr. Smith said, such access and adventure came at a price: racial taunts and prejudice, from the moment he applied to the unit to the last moments in his seven years on the team.
Mr. Smith, 48, who retired last year, has filed a discrimination complaint against the Police Department with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. His race, he said, cast him as an outsider, in a place where he was not necessarily welcome.
