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Racist friends and colleagues of the “Bad Lieutenant” are threatening the life of a Post reporter since she revealed the FDNY worker’s secret Twitter account, where he belittles women, blacks, Jews and Asians.
EMS Lt. Timothy Dluhos broke down in tears when reporter Candice M. Giove confronted him about his account, where his profile picture is of Hitler and he called Mayor Bloomberg “King Heeb.”
But his vile supporters saw nothing wrong with a city worker’s hate speech and instead unleashed a string of death threats, racial abuse and vulgar insults against Giove.
“Please die in a car fire,” @misterfriction spewed in a March 26 tweet. “Hopefully you’re pregnant when it happens.”
SCROLL DOWN FOR THE POST’S EDITORIAL: WHERE’S THE SHAME?
“I hope you get raped and murdered or sumthin,” posted @ElChiprucabra.
Offered @Oozypoo: “I would love to read . . . that you caught on fire, and they put you out with a hatchet.”
Several used profanity, including the “c” word, in a stream of gutter jabs.
“I hate this bitch more than anything right now,” railed @Creepyphuquer.
“I’ve been barraging her since Sunday,” bragged @GingerDemoness.
Dluhos has been suspended without pay from his $93,561-a-year, taxpayer funded job at EMS Station 57 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, after a Post investigation found he was tweeting about his job under the pseudonym Bad Lieutenant. He posted messages like “f–ken chinks can’t drive” and bragged about his Nazi memorabilia.
One reader, identifying himself as Ryan Collins, wrote in to the paper, saying that reporters were likely to be physically attacked, then threatened, “Just hope you don’t need ems when it happens.”
On Wednesday night, Footer and P-Rock, hosts of an online radio program called “The Red Show,” poured out their admiration for Dluhos.
“I love him,” gushed P-Rock. “He’s a brave motherf–ker, but in the end he’s going to come out fine . . . He’s been cornered as a racist, and that’s not true. Tim’s our guy.”
“The guy’s getting railroaded here,” remarked Footer.
Dluhos called in to thank the radio show for its support. The two hosts then took pot shots at Giove. “Like I said to that dumb c—, ‘He’s out there saving lives!’ ” said Footer.
Then the hosts tried to guess the reporter’s ethnicity: “For me she looked a little yellow, like Middle Eastern. I don’t think she should be allowed to carry a backpack.”
On another online radio show, LustNLove Radio, the female host said, “I pray to God the day doesn’t come when this girl’s crossing the street and she gets hit by a f–king bus in the f–king head.”
Meanwhile, listeners offered their own support in a chat room for “The Red Show” that appeared to include Dluhos (as “Tim BOOM”) and some of his Twitter pals.
Posted Lyle: “Hey Tim . . . real nigs see who you are through that c—’s article.”
Asked by The Post if he would respond to the scandal, Dluhos wrote, “I can’t.”
But he added: “My wife wants to KILL me right now.”
EDITORIAL: WHERE’S THE SHAME?
When this newspaper exposed EMS Lt. Timothy Dluhos for his vile tweets, we thought it couldn’t get worse. After all, here was a guy tweeting under the moniker “Bad Lieutenant” and using a photo of Adolf Hitler for his profile. But it turns out that Dluhos has friends in some pretty low places.
These friends of Dluhos have now turned their online fury on Candice M. Giove, the Post reporter who exposed him. Some fantasize about her being raped. Another talks about her being killed with a hatchet. One perverse soul wishes she would die in a car fire — “hopefully” when she’s pregnant.
Let’s put this in perspective: Dluhos is an officer in the service of New York City who was tweeting his rants for all the world to read. Though he wept when he was found out and asked reporters to leave him in peace for the sake of his children, he’s not exactly keeping quiet himself. On Wednesday, the suspended lieutenant called in to an online radio program to thank a host who then told him he was “a brave motherf—–.”
Rest assured, Candice Giove will be fine. She is a tough reporter. And neither she nor The Post is about to be intimidated by lowlifes whose idea of defending Dluhos is to speculate about the grisly death of a female journalist or refer to her with vulgarities.
We can’t help wondering: How many of the people posting these things would show so much bravado if they had to sign their own names to their posts?
We all say things we regret. But we’re seeing something very different from regret from Dluhos’ defenders — something far more troubling than tasteless language.
What we are seeing is the fruit of an online universe whose offer of anonymity is helping to feed a culture of shamelessness.