A pair of high-ranked New York City Police chiefs violated department policy when they made “demeaning” and “unprofessional” social media posts to attack civil servants and journalists, according to a report released Tuesday by an independent monitor.

The Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD faulted the department’s Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry and its current top uniformed member John Chell for posts shared last year on the social media platform X that served to “diminish senior law enforcement officers in the eyes of the public.”

The posts coincided with the department’s effort to “control the narrative” by creating their own media apparatus and people deemed as hostile to the department’s goals.

Investigators cited several displays of “inappropriate” online behavior, including a post from Chell’s official X account accusing a New York judge of allowing a “predator” to be loose on the New York City streets. He later admitted that he had criticized the wrong judge.

At minimum, the online attacks ran afoul of basic internal guidelines, investigators said. (iStock)

A spokesperson for the City Council, Rendy Desamours, said the probe made it clear that the NYPD “must align its social media practices with the City’s established policy and maintain strong oversight to ensure compliance.”

“Ensuring the NYPD’s social practices are appropriate and respectful requires the Department to hold those found to have violated policies accountable,” Desamours said.

The inspector general said in the report that the online attacks had stopped after the investigation was launched last year, although it was not because of any official change in department social media policies.

“Rather, the department recognized that it could respond effectively to criticism without creating a public backlash,” the report said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.