Feb. 2, 2022 By Christian Murray
An anti-cop message was scrawled on a Ridgewood subway station Tuesday and Council Member Bob Holden has taken exception to it.
The message, which was scribbled in black pen at the entrance to the Forest Avenue station, read: “Boohoohoo Cop FUNeral LOL.”
The vandal targeted the station about 10 days after two cops were gunned down in Harlem responding to a domestic disturbance call. One of the officers, P.O. Wilbert Mora, is being buried today, with the other, P.O. Jason Rivera, buried last week.
“Anti-police rhetoric is not harmless,” Holden tweeted. “We see the consequences: open season on our police. Even some of our elected officials have spewed anti-cop language and it encourages violent crime. There’s no place in the city for harmful language like this.”
Holden described the incident as” reprehensible” and said the people who do this type of graffiti are either career criminals or are just mindless.
“Many of them haven’t dealt in the real world and don’t know what New York City was like in the ’70s and ’80s when the city was a much more dangerous place,” Holden said. He described the graffiti as “moronic” and said it is akin to hate speech.
Holden said he is hopeful that the NYPD nabs the person responsible, noting that there is likely to be video footage.
Anti-police rhetoric is not harmless. We see the consequences: open season on our police. Even some of our elected officials have spewed anti-cop language and it encourages violent crime.@MTA is removing this. There’s no place in this city for hateful, harmful language like this. pic.twitter.com/lFTZGtsT6o
— Robert Holden (@BobHoldenNYC) February 1, 2022