Police Workers Punished for Racist Web Posts on West Indian Parade

[alp227]

Source: NYT

Nearly 20 employees of the New York Police Department have faced discipline in connection with the posting of racist or derogatory comments on a Facebook page about revelers at the 2011 West Indian American Day Parade, a heavily policed annual celebration in Brooklyn on Labor Day weekend, a spokesman for the department said Wednesday.

The comments referred to “savages” and “animals,” and one poster wrote, “Let them kill each other.” The Facebook page, titled “No More West Indian Day Detail,” elicited comments from more than 150 people, many of whose names matched those of police officers.

After an article appeared in December in The New York Times about the online remarks, the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, vowed to conduct an internal affairs investigation, saying that 20 offensive comments “were associated with names that match those of police officers.”

On Wednesday, the department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said 17 people had since been disciplined; four of those are officers facing pending departmental trials on charges of “conduct prejudicial to the good order of the Police Department,” he said.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/nyregion/racist-posts-tied-to-west-indian-parade-bring-police-dept-discipline.html

[RoccoR5955]

1. Punished?!?! With what, a slap on the wrist?

These dopes should get fired, and fired in such a way that they cannot collect their pension.

[Posteritatis]

7. The phrase "conduct prejudicial" implies some of them are likely to be seeking new work soon. (nt)

[leftyohiolib]

2. they have a right to free speech dont they? the right to free speech is also the right to be an ass

with words. we either have free speech or we dont. i wonder if the aclu will get involved.

[arely staircase]

8. yeah because nobody has ever gotten fired for saying stupid crap

call your boss tonight and tell him he is an a-hole. see how much 1st amendment protection you have.

and you have heard of contracts right?

[leftyohiolib]

9. im not a government employee but the police are and their employer, the government,is not

allowed to abridge their speech. abridge means cut off or deprive. like saying stop saying that or you'll lose your job. that's the government abridging their free speech which is against the constitution. people need to grow up and stop crying over names that others are calling them

[arely staircase]

10. people enter into contracts all the time in which they agree not to do or say things that are

constitutionally protected. if you do so and then excercise those rights, you don't lose the right but you violated your contract and therefore allow the other party out of the contract - which might be your job, as appears may be the case with these cops. when they were hired they surely agreed (legally and contractually) to conduct themselves in a certain manner whether on or off the clock. nothing new here at all.

[Freddie Stubbs]

3. Employers can take action when the employee's off-duty conduct has the potential to

affect their work.

[leftyohiolib]

4. you know i just read the 1st amendment again and saw no employer exemption

we either have free speech or we dont

[OldEurope]

5. Maybe a silly question, but...

... who is the employer of the police?
Here in Germany that would be the people.

[leftyohiolib]

6. they are government employees and since we the people are the govrnmnt (technically) i guess

we are the employers as well (sort of)