NEWS
SOCIALLY UNACCEPTABLE
RACIST POSTS BY PGH POLICE SGT. ISN'T LIKELY THE CASE OF 'ONE BAD APPLE' BY CHARLIE DEITCH - PITTSBURGH CURRENT EDITOR
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fter the Pittsburgh Current ran a story on Friday, August 20 about a Pittsburgh Police Sergeant posting racist and false propaganda on his personal Facebook page, the city announced later that evening that the matter was being investigated and the officer had been put on paid administrative leave. George Kristoff, who was promoted to the rank of sergeant in January 2015, has since made his Facebook private but his identity was verified by other personal posts on the page. But screenshots from the page were saved by a Morningside resident who discovered them last week and shared with the Pittsburgh Current. All of the information shared on Kristoff’s page appeared to be reshares of memes and other posts. One post reads: “If you don’t want to get hit by a car, don’t protest in the middle of a highway. If you don’t want to be killed by police, don’t engage in illegal activities. If you’re scared of the coronavirus, stay home. If you don’t love
CHARLIE@PITTSBURGHCURRENT.COM
Police officers face off with protesters last week in Point Breeze (left). Above: two of the Facebook posts made by Pittsburgh Police Sgt. George Kristoff.
America, leave it. It’s really not that difficult. Another shows a photo of two Black children holding handguns. The caption underneath reads: “And they wonder why their kids are getting shot.” “I couldn’t believe what I was reading,” says resident Jen Cielslak. “This is a cop
who works in Zone 5 and has been deployed for the recent protests. Over 30 of his posts were flagged by Facebook as fake news. I worry about a police officer who spreads this kind of thing.” Cieslak and anyone else who might have to deal with Kristoff has reason to worry.
Just by the examples listed above, Kristoff, whose zone includes some predominantly black neighborhoods, thinks a protester on a roadway deserves to get hit by a car; a person “engaged in illegal activities” deserves to be killed by police; and black kids being killed, shot and murdered is the fault of simply being born black. But the worry shouldn’t just be about the post of just one police officer. Because for every racist post, it’s safe to assume that other police officers saw them and did nothing. Maybe they even reposted it or left a like. That could turn a situation of the alleged “one bad apple” in a tree rotting at its roots. “Anytime you have an officer who is employed by the city, and his job and the rest of the department’s job is to insure the health safety and general welfare of the community, make clearly racially insensitive and racist remarks, it doesn’t just call into question one officer but the entire police apparatus,” says Jerry Dickinson, the Pitt constitutional
PITTSBURGH CURRENT | AUGUST 24, 2020 | 7
