A digital press aide for the City Council is under fire from the head of the New York City police officers union after it was revealed that she advocated violence against officers.
Ember Ollom — a digital media rep hired by Council Speaker Adrienne Adams’ office last fall — urged people to attack city cops on social media amid confrontations between officers and demonstrators during the George Floyd protests in May of 2020.
“I would like it on the record that I would like you all to throw more bottles at cops and torch more vans,” Ollom said in a May 30, 2020 tweet, responding to a tweet from Brooklyn Councilman Justin Brannan, who is now the Council’s finance committee chairman.
Brannan had denounced the violence in his tweet, which said, “In the middle of a deadly pandemic, we saw elected officials indiscriminately thrown to the ground and beaten with batons, bottles thrown at cops, and NYPD vans torched.”
PBA President Patrick Hendry said Ollom’s hire is just the latest anti-cop outrage emanating from the Council.
“No wonder the City Council spends more time tormenting police officers than helping us stop violent crime – just look at the hardcore cop-haters on their team,” Hendrey said in a statement to The Post..
“This hate-filled individual who called for more attacks on police officers should be investigated and fired, but we know that won’t happen because the City Council only believes in ‘accountability’ for cops.”
Hendry recently slammed the Council for pushing a slew of bills he and others claim will bury cops in paperwork and aid criminals.
Ollom, 28, said Thursday she now regrets her anti-police statement.
“Witnessing police brutality against New Yorkers at the height of the 2020 George Floyd protests when I was 25 years old, I was frustrated and made a post in anger that was a regrettable choice of words that I later deleted,” Ollom said.
“It is unfortunate that a mistake I made three years ago is being used to attack me in pursuit of a political agenda.”
She restricted her Twitter account after The Post made queries, but screen grabs were already taken of her incendiary comment.
Ollom is a member of Brannan’s political club, the Bay Ridge Democrats. She previously was an organizer for the left-leaning Working Families Party.
The Council leadership defended its hiring of Ollom.
“Ember is a staffer that we selected in a competitive process with multiple candidates. She is highly qualified and dedicated to serving the city – any insinuation that she did not earn her job is frankly misogynistic,” said Council spokesperson Shirley Limongi.
“She has expressed remorse for the words used in a three-year-old tweet posted in the heat of the 2020 racial justice protests that was deleted shortly thereafter, and using it to attack a young woman on our staff is disgraceful. We reject violence in all forms.”
Brannan declined to comment.
Republican activist and Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa said it’s disgraceful — but not surprising –that the Council would hire someone hostile to the police.
“Birds of a feather flock together. She’s reflective of the views the progressives on the City Council have of the police. `She one of us. We want her on our staff!'” Sliwa said.