NYPD cops, call participants in Brooklyn West Indian Day parade 'animals' and 'savages'

Many enjoy Brooklyn West Indian Day parade as police stand by.

NYPD Officer Dustin Edwards refused to comment on his involvement in a Facebook group with racially offensive postings.


Offensive entries trigger NYPD probe

Posters on Facebook who identified themselves as cops called participants in the Brooklyn West Indian Day parade “animals” and “savages” in a series of offensive entries that triggered an NYPD probe Monday.

“Let them kill each other,” wrote one Facebook member who posted comments under a cop’s name, according to The New York Times.

“I say have the parade one more year and when they all gather drop a bomb and wipe them all out,” wrote another, who said he was a police officer.

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said Monday he would refer the matter to the department’s Internal Affairs Bureau.

The Facebook comments were posted for several days in September but have since been taken down.

Those who posted comments said they were angered at being assigned to the parade. They apparently used real names, in keeping with Facebook policy, and some identified themselves as officers.

One of the writers identified himself as Nick Virgilio, a police officer.

Contacted by the Daily News, Virgilio denied making derogatory comments and suggested that his Facebook account had been used without his knowledge.

“I tried to reach out to Facebook because I’ve had problems with people going on there who wrote things that I had nothing to do with,” he said. “This happened a couple of times, most recently several months ago.”

Virgilio declined to reveal where in the department he works or whether he was assigned to the parade.

Lawyers Benjamin Moore and Paul Lieberman used the Facebook diatribes in their defense of Tyrone Johnson, who was acquitted of gun possession charges last month.

The lawyers found that the Facebook profile of the arresting officer, Sgt. Dustin Edwards, showed he belonged to a group formed for “N.Y.P.D. officers who are threatened by superiors and forced to be victims themselves.”

Edwards could not be reached for comment.

The NYPD bars officers from making “discourteous or disrespectful remarks” about race or ethnicity.

The parade, an annual Labor Day weekend event, has been marred by episodes of violence.

“It’s a scheduled riot,” one poster said, according to The Times.

NYPD Probes West Indian Day Parade Insults: MyFoxNY.com