Baimadajie Angwang thought he would be reinstated to his dream job as a New York City police officer after federal prosecutors dropped criminal charges alleging he spied for China. Instead, he is fighting the police commissioner’s decision to fire him.
In a decision made public recently, Commissioner Edward Caban ordered the immediate firing of Angwang on Jan. 29, saying he disobeyed an order to submit to questioning by internal affairs investigators about the spying case.
Angwang, 37, said he declined to appear before the investigators last year on the advice of his lawyers, because the NYPD refused to give them department documents ahead of the questioning that would have allowed them to prepare. Now he is considering taking the commissioner to court over his firing.
“It’s extremely disappointing,” Angwang told The Associated Press in a phone interview Wednesday. “I have to continue to fight, not just for me, for anyone who were wrongfully accused in the past who’s getting the wrongful treatment I just got at this moment, or any potential discrimination victims in the future. … I will not give up until I find the 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 failure to obey and comply with questioning under an official investigation undermines its ability to carry out its mission,” Caban wrote.
Angwang, who was born in Tibet and granted asylum in the U.S. in his teens, was arrested by federal agents in September 2020, charged with feeding information about New York’s Tibetan community to the Chinese consulate in New York. He denied the allegations but spent six months in detention before being freed on bail awaiting trial.
In a surprise move in January 2023, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn suddenly dropped the charges and did not fully explain why, saying only that they uncovered new information and were acting “in the interest of…
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