Longtime Brooklyn Community Council member resigns due to NYPD promotion

A longtime member of the Brooklyn Precinct Community Council has resigned over the promotion of an NYPD commander who rallied to leave the area, Daily News has learned.

Joe Gonzalez, a community activist who has been a member of the 79th City Council since 2006, resigned on Thursday after the Daily News reported that Inspector John Mastronardi had been promoted to deputy chief.

“I am heartbroken that John Mastronardi will pass 1PP tomorrow and be promoted to chief,” Gonzalez wrote in a text that was sent to more than 30 police officers on Thursday. “He attacked a citizen on video, inflicting bodily harm. I am in deep pain.”

Mayor Adams, who had worked with Gonzales for years on community issues, asked the local leader to stay, but he refused.

“I’m appalled that he got a promotion,” Gonzalez, 52, said of Mastronardi on Friday. “He has a very bad relationship with society. He gave the green light [an atmosphere] where officers can just be mean and obnoxious.”

At the height of the pandemic, Mastronardi was reported to have helped arrest several men in an altercation over mask mandates. The video showed him scaring off a man who asked him why he was not wearing a mask. The police hit the man’s head on the pavement during the arrest, Gonzalez claims.

“Mastronardi twisted his arm like a pretzel and they took him away,” Gonzalez says. “Immediately after this, Mastronardi and the sergeant approached another citizen a few feet away. The sergeant ran up and began to beat the citizen in front of [him]. Both have videos.

“[The incident] he is still talked about in society, and he gets a promotion,” Gonzalez said bitterly.

The public was so outraged by the behavior of the commander that they put together a petition on Change.org demanding that he be removed from the station. The petition garnered 285 signatures before Mastronardi was quietly moved to a more modest position in the New York Police Chief’s office.

The department said at the time that his transfer had nothing to do with the petition and public outrage over what had happened.

During his promotion at police headquarters on Friday, Mastronardi refused to speak to a news reporter about Gonzalez’s resignation and public disapproval of his promotion.

“He is a good guy!” another NYPD commander spoke of Mastronardi before disappearing into the crowd.

District community councils are made up of residents and community leaders who act as a buffer between neighboring and local police chiefs. Gonzalez said it was rare for a community council member to resign, but he felt he had no choice.

“I just quit,” he said. “I rang [Chief of Department Jeffrey] Maddry and told him I just couldn’t do it.”

According to a community leader, an assistant from Maddry’s office contacted Gonzalez after the call.

“[He] said I was overreacting,” Gonzalez said. “But his promotion sends the wrong signal to the police — that you can attack a citizen and there will be no responsibility for it.”