NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) -- NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell said Monday that he's tired of the police department dealing with "bad articles" and that he will push back against the media if necessary to defend the city's cops.
Chell has been taking to social media recently to rip coverage of the NYPD, directly calling out journalists on their coverage.
He doubled down Monday in comments to reporters, including 1010 WINS' Juliet Papa, saying: "We can multitask very well. I can tweet and fight crime at the same time."
The department will "push back" against reports deemed to be unfair, he said. "We're not going to sit back and take it, and that's the new way we're going to do things."
In one post on X Sunday, Chell called the New York Times' coverage of slain NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller's funeral "disgraceful." He wrote he'll "be taking advantage of all social media platforms, radio shows and media appearances to confront the anti-police rhetoric by journalists who orchestrate it."
In his comments to reporters, Chell took particular issue with an opinion piece in the Daily News, published the same day as Diller's funeral, in which columnist Harry Siegel was critical of the NYPD's efforts to fight crime in the subway.
"He called our chief of department out with some cheap shot," Chell said. "He gives wrong information about homicides. He tells our cops 'gotta get on the same page.' Are you kidding me? You're not going to question if my cops are on the same page."
Chell made headlines just weeks ago for an X post in which he called out a state judge by name, saying she had released a man he deemed a "predator." The message was later found to have misidentified the judge, and Chell issued an apology, though the original post remains up.
It's said to be part of a concerted effort by the NYPD to engage the public and influence policy through a more aggressive online presence, including with production-savvy videos.
Chell said Monday that most of the posts on his X account were written by him personally.
"Most of them are my fingertips," he said. "Because I refuse, and I will not relent, on people going after our cops. Not gonna happen."
