A trove of newly released e-mails shows how the NYPD infiltrated Black Lives Matter protests by using undercover officers and “sources” — and how cops referred to demonstrators as “idiots” while bragging about all the overtime they were getting.
The revelations drew sharply divergent reactions from Mayor de Blasio, who called the spy-job excessive, and his police commissioner, who defended the practice.
The nearly 700 e-mails — sent between November 2014 and January 2015 amid a series of protests in the city — were published Thursday with redactions, following a Freedom of Information Law request.
“The e-mails were a means for NYPD to receive reports and photographs from its undercover officers and civilian sources, to provide information to its operatives at the protests and to allow the NYPD officers on the ground to communicate among themselves,” said lawyer M.J. Williams, whose law firm obtained the messages.
Officers, sometimes citing “sources,” identified march leaders and were ordered to keep tabs on them, the messages show.
“Whatever team in vicinity of West side hwy 49 to 50 heading south, Chief looking to locate ———-. See if u can locate,” one redacted e-mail said, apparently referring to Chief of Intelligence Thomas Galati, who is cc’d on other e-mails.
Most senders and recipients were redacted.
The cops used the e-mail chain to keep tabs on where marchers were headed — but they also complained when things were going slow.
“Still idiots up in Times Square,” one frustrated cop wrote around 1 a.m. message on Dec. 5, 2014.
“T2, [nothing to report]. Sorry, I’m trying to give you something but I got nothing,” one officer wrote on Dec. 15 while on patrol in Union Square.
Others seemed more than happy to follow the marches as long as it meant collecting a fat overtime paycheck. One Dec. 5 e-mail shows a meme depicting angry protestors with the caption: “Nothing like saying f–k the police by giving hundreds of cops tons of overtime before the holidays.”
Undercover teams prowled Zuccotti Park on Dec. 18 after someone flagged a flyer for an event there called “Arrest Patrick Lynch” — the head of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association — but all they did was watch uniformed cops roust some teens. “Team 1, zuccotti park clear. PD kicked out some high schoolers, all good,” the cop wrote.
De Blasio, who took office in January 2014, said he had no idea the surveillance happened under his watch.
“I have no understanding of why there would need to be any monitoring,” de Blasio said. “So I will, of course, wait for the details, but [Black Lives Matter] are not a security risk in any way shape or form.”
Police Commissioner James O’Neill maintained on WNYC that “we do not interfere with the constitutionally protected activities.”
The NYPD claimed in a statement that it “did not investigate Black Lives Matter as a political organization or movement” and was instead monitoring a small group of individuals “who had specific plans to go beyond lawful protest.”
Additional reporting by Yoav Gonen