faces the facts
Sorry, gun dope, online threats a no-no for teach job
CAREER TIP: Photographing yourself with a gun next to a cop car could wreck your chances for a job working with kids.
A Bronx man who posted a Facebook photo of himself wielding a pistol by a 45th Precinct patrol car says he can’t pursue a career opportunity at a preschool with the law on his back.
“I was about to become a teacher’s assistant, but this has messed me up,” Kelvin Rodriguez, 21, told the Daily News outside his Westchester Square home.
Rodriguez said he fears his arrest cost him a shot at a job at the Brightside Academy child-care center on White Plains Road.
“I have all my certificates,” Rodriguez said, displaying papers that said he was trained to cope with children suffering from shaken baby syndrome and to look out for child abuse.
“They’re making me out to be a terrorist . . . . I’m not a monster,” he said.
No one at Brightside, a chain of preschools, could be reached for comment Monday evening.
The picture showing Rodriguez with a gun went up on Facebook on Friday afternoon.
Posted by “Relz DA Blixky,” the image showed Rodriguez with a gun in his right hand in front of the cop car while a pal spoke to an officer through the car’s passenger window.
The picture had the comment, “Ya see da blixky . . . stupid dum n---as ... f--- da 45th.” “Blixky” is slang for a gun.
Cops didn’t find it funny. It reminded many of the ambush killings of Officer Miosotis Familia in the Bronx last summer, and of Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu in Brooklyn in 2014.
All three were shot dead in police vehicles.
Police busted Rodriguez early Sunday near his Frisby Ave. home. They stopped him as he was bicycling the wrong way down the street.
“I was just riding my bike on the street and they tackled me,” he said. “There were five cops on top of me.”
A criminal complaint charged Rodriguez with drug possession, harassment and criminal possession of a weapon. He was released on his own recognizance after an appearance in Bronx Criminal Court.
Rodriguez says cops found him with prescription Xanax and Valium.
“I take medication for anxiety and depression. I am diagnosed with schizophrenia,” he said.
He also possessed a small amount of marijuana, according to court papers. He’s due back in court next month.
Rodriguez says no cop or anyone else has a reason to fear him. “There was no threat,” he said. “I’m a good kid.”