Black NYPD Officer Reprimanded For Tweeting #BlackLivesMatter From Personal Account

An NYPD officer is facing disciplinary action after tweeting
“Black Lives Matter” from her personal account, in response
to a post from the Department’s 76th Precinct’s Twitter
page.
Gwendolyn Bishop, a black woman, was reprimanded and
slapped with departmental charges after officials accused
her of inappropriately writing on the Brooklyn Precinct’s
Twitter page. According to reports, she responded to a
tweet about a gun arrest that read, “76th Pct Special Ops
Team makes arrest and recovers a loaded 9MM hand gun
#onelessgun.” To which Bishop responded saying, “Sad day
for the 76th Pct. #BlackLivesMatter,” from her personal
account, @ducklipzanddimplzz .
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Since the Feb. 17th tweet and response, Bishop has been in
hot water with the higher-ups of the department. On
Tuesday, the officer stood for a departmental trial to
explain her actions, as officials determine the fate of her
future with the department. When asked about the tweet,
the officer said she made a typo, blaming it on auto-
correct. She said she meant to write #Bluelivesmatter, a
hashtag she has used in two other tweets.
“I vaguely remember the tweets. If I had to guess, there
were a lot of changes in my precinct about shifts being
switched, but it had nothing to do about this gun arrest,”
she said.
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Bishop’s counsel, John Tynan, defended his client’s actions
revealing that she has not violated any rules. Being that she
replied to the tweet from her own personal account, she did
not access the official account for the Precinct, and her
personal account did not reveal she was an officer of the
law, Daily News reports.
“She can reply to a tweet just as the 500 million others who
use Twitter can,” he said. However, the Precinct’s integrity
control officer refuted Tynan’s defense, saying that the
picture of Bishop’s account matched the picture on her
Facebook page. Lt. Steven Rios also revealed the Twitter
account was linked to a Veronica Bishop, which is the
woman’s middle name, the publication reports.
Bishop faces a year of probation and the loss of up to 30
vacation days if convicted of all the accusations brought
against her, including violating departmental rules and

“mouthing off” to higher-ups.