Racist Facebook Rants by NYPD Officers

"I say have the parade one more year and when they gather drop a bomb and wipe them all out." - NYC Police Officer Dan Rodney, who confirmed to The New York Times that he is a police officer and uses Facebook but denied posting the comment on Facebook under his name. His explanation: "That wasn't me. I leave my phone around sometimes. Other than that I have no comment."

"'Let them kill each... other,' wrote one of the Facebook members who posted comments under a name that matched that of a police officer."

In a front-page story on 12/6/11, The New York Times reported on the racist rants in September of a Facebook group entitled "No More West Indian Day Detail." The Times did a comparison of the names "of some of the more than 150 people who posted comments on the page with city employee listings and found that more than 60 percent matched the names of police officers..." This Facebook group, which had 1,200 members, was exposed by defense attorneys who now check to see if arresting officers are on Facebook, has since vanished.

The Times notes that some of the posted comments "appeared to have broken Police Department rules barring officers from 'discourteous or disrepectful remarks' about race or ethnicity." The chief spokesperson for the NYPD did not deny that the names posted in the Facebook group were police officers and said he would refer the issue to Internal Affairs.

Police may insist that the Facebook rants on "No More West Indian Day Detail" are not representative of the thinking of most officers. But the racist public posts by this group are a shocking revelation, with names attached, of the attitudes of too many.

Scott