In 2023 and 2024, top NYPD officials—namely, Chief of Department John Chell and Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry—inaugurated a new, bullying approach in the police department's social media engagement with perceived enemies. In the space of a few months, Chell and Daughtry attacked a sitting state judge whose ruling they disagreed with (and in the process, misidentified the judge); attacked a lawyer who had conducted a confrontational interview with the mayor; picked fights with newspapers and multiple journalists, calling some of them names; and deemed a sitting City Council member "a person who hates our city" and hinted that voters should throw her out of office.
A report released today by the Department of Investigation's NYPD Office of the Inspector General concludes that those social media posts violated multiple rules, and "personally targeted individuals deemed to be critical of or disrespectful to law enforcement with insulting language, including name calling and mockery."
"The posts were discourteous, dismissive, demeaning and could have been—and were in some instances—perceived as threatening or intimidating to the individuals referenced," the report found, and were "plainly inappropriate and regrettable uses of official City social media accounts."