Democrat New York State Senator Kevin Parker Tweets ‘Kill Yourself’ To GOP Staffer Over Parking Tiff
A New York State Senator tweeted to a junior staffer that she should kill herself after a tiff over a parking spot, Politico is reporting.
Kevin Parker, a Democrat, tweeted the offensive missive after Candice Giove — a deputy communications director for New York State Senate Republicans — did some digging, and determined that Parker had parked his vehicle improperly in a Manhattan bike lane.
According to Bicycling magazine, Giove found that a vehicle was illegally parked in a bike lane, and tried to suss out who the vehicle belonged to. She determined that the license plate number on the parking placard in the vehicle did not match the license plate on the vehicle. After some snooping, she determined that the vehicle belonged to Parker, and that he either used the placard on the wrong car, or gave it to someone else to use — both of which are illegal.
She posted a picture of the illegally-parked car.
Not long afterwards, Parker tweeted back with a rather direct message.
“Kill yourself!”
Parker deleted the tweet some time later, but nothing you ever post on the internet is truly gone, especially since Giove retweeted Parker’s tweet herself, in essence preserving the deleted tweet for all eternity.
Oh my word. pic.twitter.com/DB7KgEZj8s
— Jon Campbell (@JonCampbellNY) December 18, 2018
Parker later apologized.
“I sincerely apologize. I used a poor choice of words. Suicide is a serious thing and and should not be made light of.”
Incoming Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a Yonkers Democrat, welcomed Parker’s apology, according to USA Today.
“I was disappointed in Senator Parker’s tweet. Suicide is a serious issue and should not be joked about in this manner. I am glad that he has apologized.”
However, it appears that Parker’s apologetic sentiment was short-lived. Contacted by Politico, Parker began assailing Giove for her legislative efforts and called her a “Twitter troll.”
“She’s been on the wrong side of history every single time. So why is anybody allowing this tempest in a teapot go on when she’s nothing but an Internet troll? She’s a Twitter troll.”
Parker has earned something of a reputation as a hot-head, both in his legislative career — and in his personal life. In 2005, he was ordered to take anger-management classes after punching a traffic cop. In 2009, he was arrested for roughing up a New York Post photographer. And in 2010, he and a Senate colleague got into a shouting match on the Senate floor over a nominee for the New York Power Authority board.
