Precinct Captain 'Does Not Care' About Chelsea Cops, Union Says

CHELSEA, NY — Tenth Precinct officers are "under attack" by their own captain, the cop union claimed in an open letter to the Chelsea precinct cops.

The Police Benevolent Association is claiming the Chelsea precinct Captain Kevin J. Coleman is attacking officers and their families for changing assignments, including for PBA delegates in retaliation for standing up for other officers, the letter claims.

"You are under attack!!!!" the letter, first reported by the New York Post, reads.

"The attacks are not physical, we know that, yet, they are just as dangerous. Captain Kevin J. Coleman is attacking you and your families by creating an extremely hostile work environment," according to the letter, signed by Manhattan South Trustee John Flynn and Manhattan South Financial Secretary Merritt Riley. Coleman "does not care about you or your family's home life," the letter says.

The open letter claims Coleman has given assignments without regard to work performance, seniority or home life and retaliated against PBA delegates who stood up for cops by changing their assignments.

"All this comes at a time where we as a department are in the midst of a health crisis," Flynn and Riley wrote, referencing several cops who have died by suicide this year in what NYPD's Commissioner James O'Neill called a mental health crisis.

The union also accused Coleman of not attending a 9/11 ceremony this year, honoring those lost during the 2001 attacks, but still came into work and adjudicated a complaint against an officer, who also happened to have lost his father to a 9/11-related illness, the letter says.

The NYPD and the Captains Endowment Association union did not immediately respond to Patch for comment, but the CEA told the Post the captain "conducts his command operations in a fair and equitable manner."

The CEA also said the complaint that was adjudicated "began well before 9/11 and was not intended to coincide or distract from the solemnity of this day of mourning and remembrance."