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NYPD Deputy Inspector Threatened With Violence On Facebook
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Feb 10, 2013
Modified Feb 10, 2013
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WPIX
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Feb 10, 2013
Modified Feb 10, 2013
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The NYPD is looking for a man who solicited people to kill a Deputy Inspector in a message on his precinct's Facebook page. The Post reports that an unnamed man wrote about D.I. Joseph Gulotta's schedule—the times he arrived and left work, and his vehicle description—on the 73rd Precinct's page, and ordered a "hit" on the commander. “If the guy who made the threat is powerful enough and everybody in the neighborhood holds him in great stature, then somebody might carry out the hit,” a source tells the tabloid. “He’ll end up in jail for the rest of his life, though.”
Gluotta filed a report regarding the threat against his life, which has since been removed. Police say they're looking into whether the author of the threat was a member of "OccFam," a gang related to the Crips. Brooklyn's 73rd Precinct had the second-highest number of stop and frisks in 2011, according to the department's own data, and 15 murders in 2012, which the Post calls "high."
The Post implies that Gulotta was targeted because he's "on the vanguard of a new wave of Internet-savvy cops who monitor Facebook and other social-media sites looking for gangsters." But we know that thanks to a profile on Gulotta and his precinct's work the Daily News published on Wednesday. “Social media has changed everything," Gulotta says in the story. “You need to know who the bad guys are…the more intel we get, the better."
Most recently, the department's Juvenile Justice Division—deemed "the clearinghouse to support social media-driven investigations,"—used Facebook in an investigation that resulted in the arrest of 49 alleged gang members.
Another threat that was made against Commissioner Ray Kelly by a Gothamist commenter last year was dealt with swiftly: 49-year-old Richard Strauss was arrested days after writing that "A well placed round of 7.62 ammo to [Kelly's] thick skull would work quite well." It's worth noting that Kelly told us this summer that the department only monitors social media "for specific investigations." Apparently that is no longer the case.
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73rd precinct
brooklyn
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nypd
police
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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