Two Bronx Defenders attorneys who encouraged and appeared in a rap video that showed two men pointing guns at the head of a white actor playing a police officer have resigned under pressure, and the group’s executive director was suspended without pay for 60 days, city officials said last week.
A Department of Investigation report on the organization’s involvement with the “Hands Up” video Jan. 29 faulted the two attorneys, Kumar Rao and Ryan Napoli. It said they had objected to profanity but not to lyrics encouraging the murder of police officers (“Fo’ Mike Brown and Sean Bell a cop gotta get killed”). And it said they should not have counted on assurances by producers that they could dictate changes in the video before it was released.
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