A teacher was forced to explain a controversial post that appeared to incite violence against thousands of police officers mourning a murdered colleague.
A Brooklyn teacher, whose Instagram post appeared to incite violence against slain police officer Jason Rivera, claims his message was “misconstrued” and that he was merely commenting on the “vulnerability” of the crowd of cops.
Chris Flanigan said he received death threats over his since-deleted Instagram story, which shows an overhead shot of officers flooding Fifth Avenue for Rivera’s funeral, with the caption, “05/30/20: NYPD SUV drives into crowd.” from protesters. Ideal conditions for reciprocity.”
“I was really just trying to show the vulnerability of all these cops being in the same place at the same time, which seems like a dangerous situation to anyone so gathered,” Flanigan said New York Post On Sunday.
“I respect the NYPD. I don’t condone violence,” he continued.
“A 22-year-old police officer who was murdered on duty is reprehensible. I am devastated by this. I am devastated that his partner died a week later. Those are things that don’t sit well with me.”
Mr Flanigan, who teaches at Coney Island Prep, said he hung the post on Friday night but took it down the next morning after two friends, including one who is a police officer, commented and “questioned what I did meant by the post”.
“I hadn’t thought about it for the rest of the day because I thought I had done the right thing, only to have it removed beforehand because I didn’t want anyone else to misunderstand it or misrepresent me in the way it was perceived “, he said.
“I realized that the way it was designed looked like I was trying to incite violence and that wasn’t at all what I wanted to make of this post, so I removed it immediately.”
The incident Mr Flanigan was referring to was when an NYPD vehicle drove through a group of protesters in Brooklyn following the death of George Floyd in 2020.
Mr Flanigan insisted he was simply comparing the crowds of protesters to the massive police involvement at Friday’s Rivera’s funeral in Manhattan.
“I was trying to show the vulnerabilities between all the police officers who were gathered so close together,” Mr Flanigan said.
“No one should be the way they were on this ground. I found it too vulnerable and tried to draw a parallel between those two things.”
When asked about his use of the word “reciprocity,” the math teacher replied that it was not an incitement to violence against police officers.
“Not in the sense that people drive or do anything like the police do,” he said.
“But they put themselves in a similar position by being … all there together and it’s similar to the protesters.
“That — I’ve been trying to use that word in a way that’s almost the reverse mirror of it. The police were now the people who had gathered and the protesters were the people who had gathered. Both in dangerous situations, but in no way implying or instigating or promoting that anyone should pose a danger to others.”
Mr Flanigan was profiled by NY1 for his musical tributes to first responders in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. He told the broadcaster he felt solidarity with the Black Lives Matter protesters.
Coney Island Prep, a public charter school, has not responded to multiple requests for comment.
In another incident on Saturday, actress Jacqueline Guzman was fired from her New York theater company over her comments online about the funeral, which she called “damn ridiculous.”