A 19-year NYPD veteran who once won praise from City Hall for a viral video denouncing George Floyd's killing has now been formally disciplined for a nearly identical habit: posting himself in uniform on personal social media. Detective Dmaine Freeland, who works screening police academy applicants and moonlights as a pastor at a Brooklyn church, was placed on a year of dismissal probation and stripped of 45 vacation days after pleading guilty to departmental charges tied to those posts and to years of driving an unregistered, uninsured car.
Freeland pleaded guilty in February to posting pictures of himself in uniform to his personal social media account three separate times in 2023, along with driving the unregistered vehicle, according to Gothamist. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who took office in November 2024 as the department's second female commissioner in its 179-year history, signed off on Freeland's penalty in July, according to the mayor's office. Freeland can now be fired at any time over the next year without another hearing, per the same reporting.
A Familiar Move, But Not the First Time
This wasn't Freeland's first brush with the department over uniform posts. Back in 2020, he recorded a video in uniform at his kitchen table denouncing George Floyd's killing, calling the Minneapolis officer involved his “enemy” and urging other “good cops to speak up,” according to a Facebook video referenced in archived reporting. Then-Mayor Bill de Blasio praised the video at the time, per the Gothamist account of the disciplinary record, even as Freeland forfeited six vacation days for posting the pictures and video of himself in uniform.
Under NYPD policy, any depiction of members of service in uniform or department symbols on personal accounts is prohibited, the department's guidelines state. Freeland testified during his February trial that he posted the uniform videos to build trust and dispel skepticism among young male congregants at his Brooklyn church who doubted he was actually a police officer, according to the trial decision posted on NYPD Online. He said the posts were meant to improve community relations and that none of them portrayed the department negatively, per the department's account of his defense.
Judge Cited Decades of Service as a Factor Against Him
NYPD Administrative Law Judge Paul Gamble, who recommended the penalty, wrote in his trial report that Freeland's more than 19 years of service and his role vetting recruits for the Candidate Assessment Division actually worked against him as aggravating factors. Gamble rejected arguments that the misconduct stemmed from COVID-era stress or from Freeland's community outreach efforts, according to NYPD Online. The trial charges specifically cited Administrative Guide Procedure A.G. 304-20, Paragraph 3, for posting uniform photos, and A.G. 304-06, covering conduct prejudicial to good order, for driving an unregistered and uninsured vehicle.
The vehicle charge traced back to a 2011 Mercedes-Benz that Freeland owned. He and his wife surrendered the car's New York registration in July 2021 after racking up 28 unpaid citations, then kept driving it for more than two years on Alabama plates whose own registration expired that November, according to the trial record. Police only discovered the car was unregistered and uninsured after it crashed in September 2023, at which point Freeland had accumulated 16 more unpaid violations totaling $1,400, per Gothamist's reporting. He testified that he has since paid off what he owed.
Mitigating Record Wasn't Enough
Freeland's personnel file includes three straight exceptional performance ratings, a medal for meritorious police duty, and no prior formal disciplinary history, according to Gothamist. He previously served in the 109th Precinct in Queens and in drug enforcement in north Brooklyn before his October 2024 reassignment as a Detective Specialist in the Candidate Assessment Division, per records maintained by 50-a.org. That same database shows Freeland has been named in 14 civil rights lawsuits over his career, resulting in $595,500 in settlement payouts by the city as of 2024.
Even so, the administrative court found that combining the social media violations with years of driving an unregistered car after surrendering plates over unpaid tickets severely weakened any mitigation defense, according to the trial decision. The court emphasized that uniform regulations are strict, the record states.
What Dismissal Probation Actually Means
Under the NYPD Disciplinary System Penalty Guidelines updated in September 2024, dismissal probation defers an officer's termination for a full year, giving the police commissioner authority to fire the officer summarily, without any further administrative hearing, if additional misconduct surfaces during that window, according to guidelines published by the city. For Freeland, that means the next twelve months carry zero room for error.
The case lands amid broader departmental scrutiny of how officers use personal social media. A January 2025 oversight report on NYPD social media usage warned that unmonitored personal and executive posts by police personnel risk damaging public trust and violating citywide civility standards, according to a document posted on Scribd. Freeland's attorney, Marissa Gillespie, declined to comment on the case, per Gothamist's reporting.
