Active-Duty NYPD Cop Says Let The Whole City Burn

(Update: After being exposed, the cop threatened me, deleted his tweets, and locked his account. I’ve posted screenshot above the broken links below, and written about his threats here.)

Yesterday, a troll called @rottencity8790 sent a typical reply to one of my tweets about a story of police violence, adding details that the cops could not have known at the time to justify a shooting:

@KeeganNYC they forgot to mention the suv was stolen, there was a gun in the vehicle, and were high on drugs.

— Patriot (@rottencity8790) June 2, 2015

I decided to click on the user, as I often will, to see if they are trying to add useful information to the discussion or just spew hatred.

I quickly found what one would expect from someone with a username beginning with “RottenCity” — a lot of venomous tweets about NYC, including routinely saying “let the whole city burn.”

@DETECTIVE4LIFE @NYScanner let the city burn 😁. How is that no more 250s going for them — Patriot (@rottencity8790) May 11, 2015

He clearly has a racist world view, tweeting exclusively about crimes by minorities, blaming it on “fuck ups of minority youth,” and flatly rejecting that any systematic factors play a role:

@909tez @RevoltTV so you are blaming the goverment for the fuck ups of minority youth

— Patriot (@rottencity8790) May 10, 2015

What’s more, he seems to believe that there is no possibility of redemption for people who have committed crimes, tweeting over, and over, and over again, that people should “rot in jail and burn in hell.”

He also says he has “no sympathy” for murder victims if they have ever committed a crime themselves, even after they have served their time, and he condones non-law-enforcement vigilante violence against them, even if that means hanging a black man to death from a tree:

@lsarsour you forgot to mention he was also a convicted killer. For all we know it was the victim family that hang his ass up. Justice — Patriot (@rottencity8790) March 20, 2015

While completely vile, and reflective of the worldview that makes it difficult to reform our culture, it was pretty typical troll-stuff and easy to ignore, until I stumbled upon what are clearly two first-hand pictures of the inside of an NYPD cruiser and his personal commentary from February of this year:

Damn right i will. pic.twitter.com/uegw6k3Wdb

— Patriot (@rottencity8790) February 5, 2015

So much for morale booster. pic.twitter.com/No1SZIMlyb — Patriot (@rottencity8790) January 11, 2015

This obviously makes the troll harder to ignore, knowing that he will directly affect the lives of thousands of minority children, that I may interact with him myself while demonstrating for police reform and racial justice, and that he will be armed with a badge and a gun.

In fact, he claims to have worked some protests, and to justify hitting peaceful demonstrators with police scooters and making particularly brutal arrests:

Even if these actions would have been judged improper by his department, it seems this “Patriot” would still defend them, as he has no respect for his superiors because of their lack of “balls” and for “drinking the kool aid.” (Presumably the “kool aid” of not using excessive force).

@DETECTIVE4LIFE @KerryPicket what else is new. Cant get to chief with balls or without drinking the kool aid

— Patriot (@rottencity8790) January 4, 2015

Perhaps most disturbing is his oft repeated sentiment that the whole city can burn to the ground for all he cares, sometimes accompanied by his request for de Blasio not to attend his funeral, other times targeted at activists for social justice:

#myNYPD this city can burn to the ground. pic.twitter.com/NNS8ZCAHse

— Patriot (@rottencity8790) December 14, 2014

@MichaelSkolnik asking permission to a perp before we arrest him. This city can burn to the ground for all i care. #20andout.

— Patriot (@rottencity8790) December 13, 2014

This city is, of course, made up of the public who he swore an oath to protect, so he probably should care if it burns to the ground.

He also swore an oath to uphold the constitution, which first and foremost protects the right to peaceably gather and redress the government for grievances, which he doesn’t seem too fond of, and condones responding to with violence.

Of course, I can’t do anything to reprimand this officer, or to prove conclusively that he is an active-duty NYPD cop, but I have a hunch that a lot of other NYPD officers know who he is and what his opinions are.

I strongly hope that those officers are actively working to reform his opinions on the public and policing, or actively working to have him removed from the force, for all of our safety.