2 La. officers fired over AOC posts
WASHINGTON – Two Louisiana police officers have been fired in the wake of a Facebook post that called Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-cortez a “vile idiot” who should be shot, the Associated Press reported Monday night.
A screenshot of the post last week by veteran Gretna police Officer Charlie Rispoli was taken by The Times-picayune/the New Orleans Advocate. In it, Rispoli shares a blog post that falsely claims the New York Democrat said, “We pay soldiers too much.”
“This vile idiot needs a round,” reads Rispoli’s remarks above Ocasio-cortez’s image. “And I don’t mean the kind she used to serve,” he adds, referring to her prior career as a bartender.
Gretna Police Chief Arthur Lawson announced Monday that Rispoli was fired for the post, and Officer Angelo Varisco was fired for “liking” the post, the AP reported. Lawson said an internal investigation began after he was informed of the post by The Times-picayune/the New Orleans Advocate.
Rispoli’s post comes amid mounting concern for elected officials’ safety in an increasingly rancorous political climate.
In June 2017, a man opened fire on a group of Republican members of Congress during their baseball team’s practice in Virginia. Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana was severely injured in the attack.
Last week, Capitol police Chief Steven Sund told lawmakers “we continue to see the threat assessment cases we’re opening continue to grow.”
In May, Ocasio-cortez said she was regularly getting “hateful messages” and a “flood of death threats.” She said there was a connection between the threats and the reporting about her on conservative news media outlets and also blamed Fox News.
On Thursday, Ocasio-cortez, a fierce critic of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, questioned Homeland Security head Kevin Mcaleenan over threatening messages directed at her – including Photoshopped images depicting her rape – on a secret Facebook group for Border Patrol agents.
Ocasio-cortez is one of four Democratic congresswomen, known as “the Squad,” who have been the target of sharp criticism from President Donald Trump. Trump has said Ocasio-cortez and Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-minn., Ayanna Pressley, D-mass., and Rashida Tlaib, D-mich., “hate our country.”
The president has also suggested that the four congresswomen of color, all of whom are U.S. citizens and three of whom were born in the U.S., should return to their countries of origin and fix the problems there before trying to make legislative changes in the U.S.
Omar has said she has faced an increase in death threats since she became a Trump target. In April, a New York man was accused of saying he would “put a bullet” in Omar. That same month, a Florida man was arrested after he allegedly threatened several Democrats, including Tlaib and Omar, whom he said he wanted to throw off the Empire State Building.
Trump and his family have been targeted as well. In May, a New Jersey man was arrested for allegedly saying he wanted to “bomb Trump Tower,” and two years before that a Michigan man was charged with threatening to assassinate Trump.