For 12 years, Joseph Esposito was the highest-ranking uniformed officer in the NYPD, and for 12 years, he never once used a computer at work. But Esposito, who retired from the department in 2013, doesn't spend his days on a yacht named Stop & Fish: he is currently the Commissioner of the Office of Emergency Management.
We know this because Esposito and former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly are being sued in a class action suit related to police quotas.
Kelly and Esposito claim that over a five-year period, they never once typed the phrase "summons" (or even "summ," as in, "Another great summer without having to write or answer a single email—I love this job LOL!") in an email. Not. Once.
According to the Daily News, Kelly's excuse is that his executive style meant that he "ran the Department via virtually constant in-person meetings, not by electronic means." In other words, like Paulie in Goodfellas.
Esposito, on the other hand, admitted, "I am not technologically savvy."
Being unable to reset your wireless router's password means you're "not technologically savvy."
Avoiding the most basic forms of efficiency-creating technology that 96% of Americans use on a daily basis, while also overseeing and controlling the country's largest law enforcement agency, with 3,000 closed-circuit cameras, a "Real Time Crime Center," and surface to air missiles, would seem adorably incompetent if it weren't so utterly insane.
“Indeed, I did not even have a computer on my desk during my tenure as Chief of Department. While there was a computer in my office, I used it to display a continuous montage of family photos.”
So either Kelly and Esposito (who once testified under oath that he could not recall a single conversation with Kelly about racial profiling and policing) are lying through their powerful, secretive, liar teeth, or they really never used the kind of technology their tens of thousands of subordinates use every single day to do their jobs. Crime went down. Everything was fine. Who cares?
Kelly likely doesn't need to use much technology in his new position as Senior Wealthy Establishment Barnacle Antagonist; that clenched jaw looks analog.
But will OEM Commissioner Esposito be staring at star-wiped photos from that marlin outing in the Keys when the next hurricane hits?
A spokeswoman for the Office of Emergency Management, Nancy Silvestri, said Esposito now regularly uses email but continues to prefer face-to-face meetings or phone conversations.
“Commissioner Esposito has been technologically savvy since his first day as NYC Emergency Management Commissioner, and he has adapted to the technology the agency regularly uses,” Silvestri said, adding that the agency is “at the forefront of using technology to improve emergency response.”
Say a prayer for that Jitterbug.