Deputy inspector retires to avoid facing NYPD trial over racist rants

A high-ranking NYPD official accused of secretly posting racist comments on a law enforcement message board has retired from the Police Department.

Deputy Inspector James Kobel, 50, put in his papers Monday, after he was hit with a 30-day suspension without pay while the NYPD probes his alleged posts, a police spokesman confirmed.

Kobel posted under the name “Clouseau” on the Law Enforcement Rant — a message board where current and former cops gripe about politics, police matters and the media, often using racist remarks and insults, according to a November report by the City Council’s Oversight and Investigations Division.

Newly sworn-in Rep. Ritchie Torres, who headed the division when he sat on the Council, said Kobel shouldn’t have been given the chance to retire. “Resigning in the cover of night doesn’t erase his actions. He must be held accountable,” Torres argued, calling Kobel the “tip of the iceberg.”

“There are untold numbers of officers lurking on these online message boards, trafficking in the vilest form of bigotry,” he said. “The siege on the Capitol demonstrates we cannot afford to turn a blind eye to online hate that can easily harden into real-life extremism.”

The Council report found more than 500 posts between June 2019 and September 2020 under Clouseau’s handle. In June, he encouraged officers to call out sick during the George Floyd protests, writing, “Sadly the blue flu needs to be spread nationwide and more furious than the Wuhan Flu.”

He referred to Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark as a “gap-tooth wildebeest,” to Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie as a “savage” and to Mayor de Blasio’s son Dante as “brillohead.”