'Worst f**king job in the world': NYPD veteran Thomas Gambardella BLASTS department as he resigns
An NYPD veteran has taken to social media to slam the department as the 'worst ever'. In a Facebook post, Thomas J Gambardella posted a photo of himself giving the finger at a memorial inside the New York Police Department (NYPD) headquarters while wearing a T-shirt that read, "Let’s Go Brandon." Two weeks ago, the 20-year veteran officially resigned from his position.
“I’m officially retired today!” he wrote in a post at the time. “From this sorry excuse of a s**t job. Thank God, I’m free at last!… I loved everyone I worked with and ‘some’ of the people I’ve worked for. But this job is no one’s friend. Time to live free. I’ll see you all out there!” The statue he targeted in the post shows a police officer watching over the child of a slain cop.
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Gambardella, 41, most recently worked as a detective sergeant. He told New York Post on Saturday, July 2, that he loved his job at the NYPD when he started, but it later turned to "s**t" because of the city’s increasingly soft-on-crime policies. “I was a true believer,” Gambardella, who comes from a police family, said. “I wasn’t a bag of s**t. I worked some intricate details. I gave a lot of my blood, sweat, and tears. But no more.”
Gambardella said that what made him stop liking the gig was a combination of increasingly liberal policies. "It’s the worst f**king job in the world,” Gambardella said. “They own you. They’re not your friends. All that talk about the ‘big blue family.’ They don’t care. If I die tomorrow they wouldn’t give a s**t. If I needed something it ain’t gonna happen. I’m better off just saying a prayer.”
Gambardella said that the increased hostility toward police disgusted him. He was also upset with calls to defund the NYPD and crackdowns on what cops were able to or not able to do. “Crime is soaring and cops are leaving in droves,” Gambardella said. “Anybody can see that. All this liberalism is obviously a failure. But this is what they wanted. It’s a stupid experiment and it’s the people who will pay in the end.”
Over 2,119 NYPD officers have either resigned or retired so far this year. A number of serving and former NYPD detectives were reportedly offended at the picture of Gambardella in One Police Plaza. “I have a disease,” Gambardella said. “It’s called diarrhea of the mouth. People who know me know I’m like this. I don’t cower down,” he added.
Who is Thomas Gambardella?
Gambardella is divorced with two children. He said that cops were treated well under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former police commissioner Ray Kelly. The public, he claimed, was also better off with them. “The minute they stopped the quality of life enforcement that was the beginning of the end,” he said. “Just having people know they could get a response from a noise complaint was a big deal. But that’s all long gone," he added.
Gambardella, who reportedly made $164K last year, was named Officer of the Year in 2006 when he worked in the 68th precinct in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. He joined the force in July 2002 and recently served in the detective squad at the 70th precinct in Kensington. According to records, Gambardella had 14 complaints lodged against him. He was exonerated in four of these, while six were deemed “unsubstantiated” and one “unfounded". None of these, however, resulted in disciplinary action.