A New York City police officer tasked with leading its workplace anti-discrimination office has chosen to retire rather than face a 30-day suspension without pay for posting racist messages to a online platform for police officers.
Deputy Inspector James Kobel had been relieved of his command in November while officials investigated the allegations he penned messages that the New York police department (NYPD) commissioner, Dermot Shea, called “abhorrent” and “utterly disgusting”.
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According to investigators, Kobel posted threatening, racist rhetoric on the platform known as Rant, a chat board for NYPD personnel, using the pseudonym “Clouseau”, drawing from the French detective in the Pink Panther film series.
For more than a year he attacked primarily Black and Jewish people, as well as women and the LGBTQ+ community.
“DI Kobel did not see it as possible to get a fair administrative trial,” Chris Monahan, Captains Endowment Association president, told WYNC, blaming “the current political climate and anti-police sentiment” for the 28-year veteran opting for retirement.
The now former deputy had been promoted to commanding officer within the Equal Employment Opportunity office in May after four years of service. A spokesperson for the NYPD confirmed an internal disciplinary process is pending.
The office is responsible for preventing and investigating employment and harassment claims and has implemented policy changes in recent years providing for lactation rooms, enabling officers to wear religious head coverings and making accommodations for transgender officers.
Kobel served as the commanding officer of the Equal Employment Opportunity division, recently implementing policy changes to accommodate religious minorities, women and LGBTQ+ groups.
The investigation came amid a national reckoning on race, with advocates across the US calling to reform or abolish institutions with a legacy of racism, bias and discrimination, including exposing organizations – and their leaders – whose positions or private actions run counter to public commitments to diversity and inclusion.
Some of Kobel’s tirades invoked racist stereotypes to criticize prominent local and national leaders. In different posts, Kobel referred to a Bronx district attorney as a “gap-tooth wildebeest” and called the former president Barack Obama a “Muslim savage”.
Other insults including mocking a Black city official for having Tourette’s syndrome and writing “brillohead” to ridicule Mayor Bill de Blasio’s son’s hair. Dante de Blasio, who is mixed race, at times has sported a large afro.
The mayor tweeted Sunday that the posts were “absolutely disgusting” and go “against everything we’ve done to build a more inclusive police department”.
Kobel denied using the Clouseau pseudonym after the New York Times first reported the posts.
“Where do I go to get my reputation back,” he asked The Times. “I am unfamiliar with any of these posts.”
New York City council investigators were able to trace the messages back to Kobel by matching information the anonymous handle shared with publicly available details about his life and career. An oversight panel will publicly release their findings Friday.
“That is a drastic step, but we thought it would be an appropriate step due to the nature of his assignment, as well as the allegations and what we have learned so far,” the commissioner told reporters.
The New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, who in November lashed out at the blog site, calling it “one of the most disgusting, disturbing, discriminatory, vile blogs that you can find on the internet”, called for the NYPD’s investigation to be thorough and transparent.
“[It’s] disturbing on so many levels, I can’t even begin to tell you. This has to be fully disclosed,” he said, arguing accountability is not just “about one person” as the blog operated unchecked “for years” with “hundreds of contributors”.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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