Deputy Inspector James Kobel retires per paperwork submitted to New York Police Department (NYPD). Kobel was assigned to the Equal Employment Opportunity Division until a two month investigation found he had been making prejudiced, sexist and intolerant comments in an online chat room under a pseudonym.
NYPD officials have concluded that a high-ranking officer responsible for combating workplace harassment in the New York Police Department wrote dozens of virulently racist posts about Black, Jewish and Hispanic people under a pseudonym on an online chat board favored by police officers.
Kobel, filed his retirement papers late last week as the NYPD inquiry was zeroing in on him. Officials said Monday that they still planned to bring administrative charges against him for falsely denying that he had written the offensive messages.
“The evidence is strong,” said one senior police official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel matter. “We have no doubt that it’s him.”
Investigators considered the possibility that Inspector Kobel had been framed by someone who had purposely peppered the posts with details about his life — many, if not most, of which could be found through research on the internet. As department investigators finalized their search they concluded that Inspector Kobel lied during an interview last week in which he denied he was “Clouseau.” He had been questioned three times.
Kobel Retires
Captain Chris Monahan, who heads the Captains Endowment Association, the union that represents the inspector, defended him in a statement, saying he had served the city and the Police Department for 29 years.
“Given the current political climate and anti-police sentiment, D.I. Kobel did not see it as possible to get a fair administrative trial and decided to avail himself of the opportunity to file for retirement,” the statement said.
Kobel will take a full pension with him into retirement despite a clear disagrace to the badge he held.
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