NYPD Cop Choked Girl, 11, But Kept Job Anyway: Report

NEW YORK — An NYPD cop with a history of inflammatory Facebook posts kept his job after putting an 11-year-old girl in a chokehold and allegedly lying about how the incident unfolded, according to a new report. Lt. Paul Gaglio cuffed the girl in February 2015 after a cab driver accused a group of kids of stealing his cellphone in The Bronx, the BuzzFeed News story says.

The cop claimed under oath that they had slipped on a patch of ice, but surveillance video shows Gaglio throwing the girl, who is Latina, to the ground with his arm around her neck, according to the story.

Police brass reportedly decided in 2016 not to punish Gaglio even though chokeholds and lying about a "material matter" under oath violate NYPD rules. The NYPD settled a lawsuit with the girl in July for $87,500, the story says.

"She resisted. She ran. A lieutenant chased her. She tried to get away. They fell to the floor. He locked her up. End of story," Lou Turco, president of the NYPD's lieutenants union, told BuzzFeed.

The website also found anti-Islam and anti-LGBT Facebook posts Gaglio made four years ago. One shared on Sept. 11, 2014 accuses Islam of promoting "killing non-believers" and "beating women," while another from May of that year suggests gay couples indicate "America is in trouble."

In August 2014 — the same month a cop famously killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, sparking protests and riots — Gaglio reportedly shared a meme that offered a racially charged definition of looting: "An act performed in urban communities to honor a recently killed person that nobody knew but you tell people he was like a son."

The NYPD told BuzzFeed that it's investigating whether the now-deleted posts violate department rules.

Read the full BuzzFeed News story here.

(Lead image: Photo by Francis Dean/Shutterstock)