The Facebook group was titled "No More West Indian Day Detail," referring to police patrol for a raucous annual Brooklyn parade.
Sprinkled among the frustrations aired about regulating the crowded, loud, often-violent event were comments that were more offensive. Some called the parade, held in a predominantly black neighborhood, "ghetto training," and a "scheduled riot." Others referred to participants as savages.
The West Indian Day Parade celebrates the culture of the Caribbean islands and is one of the city's largest outdoors events. Food carts with spicy dishes and fresh fruit crowd a stately parkway and dancers shimmy wearing revealing feathered costumes.
But it's often surrounded by violence. Following the parade this year, a woman was shot to death while sitting on her stoop with her daughter, as police exchanged gunfire nearby with an armed man who'd opened fire on another person moments before. And others were shot to death during celebrations in 2003 and 2005.
"Maybe next year they should hold it on Riker's Island," one of the Facebook posts read, referring to the city's main jail.
At least 20 such comments made on the page may have come from police officers, New York Police Department officials said this week. Internal affairs detectives are interviewing officers under oath and getting subpoenas for computer records. Departmental charges could be brought, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
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