A slew of social media posts by top NYPD brass earlier this year were “unprofessional” and fomented an “unproductive public discourse,” the city’s Department of Investigation (DOI) found in a new report released Tuesday.
The DOI’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG-NYPD) for the NYPD conducted the investigation and report at the request of City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams last spring. It came in response to a barrage of X (Twitter) posts by top NYPD executives, including now-Chief of Department John Chell — who was chief of patrol at the time — and Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry, along with the department’s press office.
In the posts, the officials openly antagonized journalists, public officials, and activists while expressing opinions that could be seen as political discourse — something that police officials and other city employees are barred from participating in.
DOI Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber charged that “no aspect” of some of the social media posts the agency reviewed “served the public.”
“New York City deserves public officials who use social media responsibly, to communicate accurate information and to prompt respectful dialogue on issues of importance to the community, and not as a means to ridicule those with whom they disagree,” Strauber said on Jan. 28.
While city investigators found that a couple of posts by the accounts “raise questions” about whether they could be seen as prohibited political activity, they reached “no conclusion” on that point.
The NYPD, in an emailed response to a request for comment, claimed the report found it had “already made significant changes to its social media practices.” But, although investigators did commend top NYPD brass for ceasing the behavior under scrutiny since last May, they said the department could still do much more to improve its social media practices.
“We appreciate DOI’s comprehensive report,” an NYPD spokesperson said. “We look forward to reviewing the report and recommendations.”
Mayor Eric Adams previously defended the NYPD’s use of social media to push back on its critics and lauded both Chell and Daughtry when asked about their conduct online.
City investigators reviewed all posts by the accounts @NYPDChiefofPatrol, @NYPDDaughtry, and @NYPDNews — operated earlier this year by Chell, Daughtry and the NYPD’s press office respectively — between January 2022 and September 2024. While investigators concluded that the “vast majority” of the 10,300 posts by the three X accounts in question were above board, they found some “problematic posts,” which came primarily from the accounts operated by Chell and Daughtry.
“Several of the problematic posts this Office identified used hostile or negative language, either generally or directed towards a particular individual,” the report reads. “OIG-NYPD finds that these posts were inappropriate, offensive, and unprofessional and violated the [NYPD] Patrol Guide’s mandate to render services with courtesy and civility.”
Those posts included Chell publicly blasting and misidentifying a judge for their decision to release an individual pretrial who then was accused of committing another crime; antagonizing left-leaning attorney Olayemi Olurin after she appeared in a contentious radio interview with Mayor Adams; and disparaging columnist Harry Siegel after he misquoted the number of subway murders in one of his opinion pieces.
DOI also found that the department’s social media practices are out of compliance with citywide policies, its executives operate their own accounts outside the supervision of the NYPD’s press office, and top brass are not trained on how to conduct themselves online.
“The Department should strengthen its social media policies, particularly with respect to oversight of executive posts, to ensure that all posts on the Department’s social media accounts meet the NYPD’s standards of courtesy and professionalism,” Strauber said.
