Fired NYPD discrimination investigator shared racist rants online, records show
James Kobel used his work laptop and iPad to make the disturbing racial remarks
Former NYPD Deputy Inspector James Kobel attempted to cover up his racist rants by lying on several occasions to investigators. According to the NY Daily News, it was recently discovered that he used his work laptop and iPad to make disturbing racial remarks.
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Kobel, who tried to retire before he was fired back in February, made hundreds of racist statements targeting public figures and mocked those who were killed due to police violence.
“Yes, the urban ghetto types. 25,000 years of evolution continues to elude these poor unfortunate creatures,” Kobel wrote in one post. “If they can’t smoke it, drink it, f**k it or steal it, these savages destroy it,” he wrote in another.
In another post, he verbally attacked Eric Garner, the Black man who died after being placed in a chokehold by police in 2014. About Garner, he wrote, “a morbidly obese, diabetes havin’, high blood pressure ignorin’, asthma havin’, chicken wing eatin’, grape soda drinkin’, loosie sellin’ fat b*stard who died of his ‘poor dietary choices.”
He also called Barack Obama a ‘Muslim Savage’ and referred to NYC mayor, Mayor Bill de Blasio‘s son Dante, as a ‘brillo head.’
A legal battle between New York state legislators and police unions discovered Kobel lied in three separate interviews about using work-issued equipment to rant. Kobel told authorities he had been hacked, but the Administrative Law Judge Jeff Adler was not convinced.
“Where the source of these abhorrent posts was the commanding officer of EEOD, this shocking rhetoric is even more reprehensible,” said Adler.
Kobel is also accused of disclosing private police information such as arrests, disciplinary history of another officer, and suspect information.
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He did not attend the hearing, which occurred in January. But despite the discovery, the former inspector will be allowed to keep his cushy retirement package due to the union, as reported by theGrio.
Deputy Inspector James F. Kobel has denied he is the author of the racist messages posted on an online chat board called The Rant. The site is where NYPD officers “secretly” complain about their jobs.
The author posted messages under the name Clouseau, the fictional name of bumbling Police Inspector Jacques Clouseau, a character featured in the Pink Panther films.
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According to The New York Times, Clouseau posted hundreds of The Rant messages attacking Blacks, Puerto Ricans and Hasidic Jews with deep-seated dislike and in which he referred to former President Barack Obama as a “Muslim savage.” He also called Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark “ a gap-toothed wildebeest.”
Most ironically, Kobel was the head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Division within the NYPD.
The inquiry resulted in a 13-page report by the Oversight and Investigations Division of New York City Council. The division is led by Councilman Ritchie Torres, who was recently elected to the House of Representatives, one of two Black gay men chosen by New York voters to serve there.
Additional reporting by Biba Adams
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