Longtime Brooklyn precinct community council member resigns over promotion of NYPD commander

Graham Rayman, Thomas Tracy, New York Daily News
·3 min read
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A longtime Brooklyn precinct community council member has resigned over the promotion of an embattled NYPD commander the community rallied to have moved out of the borough, the Daily News has learned.

Joe Gonzalez, a community activist who has been a member of the 79th Precinct Community Council since 2006, sent in his resignation on Thursday, after the Daily News reported Inspector John Mastronardi’s promotion to deputy chief.

“I am heartbroken that John Mastronardi will walk across the 1PP stage tomorrow & be promoted to Chief,” Gonzalez wrote in a text that was sent to more than 30 police officials Thursday. “He assaulted a citizen on video inflicting injury. I am in deep pain.”

Mayor Adams, who worked on community concerns with Gonzalez over the years, asked the neighborhood leader to stay on, but he refused.

“I am appalled that he’s being promoted,” Gonzalez, 52, said about Mastronardi Friday. “He has a very poor relationship with the community. He greenlighted [an atmosphere] where officers can just be mean and nasty.”

During the height of the pandemic, Mastronardi was recorded assisting in the arrest of several men in a scrap over mask mandates. He was caught on video shooing away someone who asked him why he wasn’t wearing a mask. Cops slammed a man’s head on the sidewalk during the arrest, Gonzalez alleges.

“Mastronardi twisted his arm like a pretzel and they took him away,” Gonzalez claims. “Right after that, Mastronardi and a sergeant went up to another citizen a few feet away. The sergeant ran and began beating up a citizen in front of [him]. There’s video on both.

“[The incident] is still being talked about in the community and he gets rewarded with a promotion,” Gonzalez said bitterly.

The community was so outraged by the commander’s behavior that they put together a Change.org petition demanding his removal from the precinct. The petition collected 285 signatures before Mastronardi was quietly transferred to a lower-profile post in the NYPD’s Chief of Detectives office.

At the time, the department said his transfer had nothing to do with the petition and community outrage over what happened.

During his promotion at police headquarters Friday, Mastronardi declined to speak to a News reporter about Gonzalez’s resignation and the community’s disapproval of his promotion.

“He’s a good guy!” another NYPD commander said about Mastronardi before disappearing into the crowd.

Precinct community councils are made up of residents and community leaders who act as a buffer between the neighborhood and local police commanders. It’s quite rare for a community council member to resign, Gonzalez said, but he felt that he had no choice.

“I just quit,” he said. “I called [Chief of Department Jeffrey] Maddrey and told him I just can’t do it.”

An aide from Maddrey’s office reached out to Gonzalez after the call, the community leader said.

“[He] said I was overreacting,” Gonzalez said. “But his promotion sends the wrong message to cops — that you can assault a citizen and there’s no accountability.”