I'm thinking this Charlie Rispoli character is either going to be fired tomorrow, or take early retirement because it's pretty clear the Gretna Police Department doesn't want his kind around anymore. And if you'd like to voice your own displeasure to the Mayor, here's some contact information. The city of Gretna is about 5 minutes outside of New Orleans.
Rispoli deleted the post on Friday, but not before screen captures had been made. As word spread, he deleted his Facebook account altogether on Saturday.
Source: New Orleans Times-Picayune
A Gretna police officer posted a comment on his Facebook page this past week calling U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a "vile idiot" who "needs a round, and I don't mean the kind she used to serve."
The comment, which alludes to the freshman Democrat's past work as a New York City bartender while apparently saying she should be shot, comes amid increasing scrutiny of racist and violent social media posts by police officers in departments across the country.
Charlie Rispoli, who has been on the Gretna police force since 2005, could not be reached for comment, but Chief Arthur Lawson called the post "disturbing" when it was shown to him Friday.
“I will tell you this: This will not go unchecked," Lawson said. "I’m not going to take this lightly and this will be dealt with on our end. It’s not something we want someone that’s affiliated with our department to make these types of statements. That’s not going to happen."
Lawson said he does not think the comment constitutes an actual threat, but it appears to violate the department's social media policy, which he said all officers have read and signed.
"Whether you agree or disagree with the message of these elected officials and how frustrated you may or may not get, this certainly is not the type of thing that a public servant should be posting," he said.
Rispoli's comment referred to a fake news story he posted to his personal Facebook page on Thursday at 1:51 p.m. The story's headline attributed a fabricated quote to Ocasio-Cortez saying, "We pay soldiers too much." The photo on the post is marked as "satire" and it had been labeled "false" by the website snopes.com on Wednesday, but Rispoli appeared to be upset by it.
