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Suffolk County Police charged a Rockville Centre Police detective with a hate crime early Wednesday for harassing and intentionally damaging a contractor’s truck in Manorville, police said.
John Murphy, 40, of Manorville, was arrested and charged with two counts of fourth-degree criminal mischief as a hate crime, which is a felony, authorities said. The former U.S. Marine also faces a second-degree aggravated harassment charge.
Police said the contractor, a Black man working for a cellular company, was inside his GMC Terrain on Nov. 3 at about 7 p.m. at the corner of Sylvan Court and Weeks Avenue when Murphy approached him. Murphy allegedly asked what the subcontractor was doing in the area while identifying himself as a law enforcement officer, cops said.
Despite the worker’s attempt to present his credentials, Murphy allegedly refused to review them, police said. Murphy is accused of then kicking the subcontractor’s vehicle, damaging it, and forcibly removed a light attached to the top of the GMC, police said. He then allegedly threw the light at the subcontractor while using a racial slur, authorities said.
“The victim here was just trying to do his job, when the defendant allegedly harassed him and damaged his vehicle,” Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney said. “To make matters worse, the defendant is a sworn law enforcement officer,
responsible for protecting the rights of citizens, rather than violating them, as is alleged here.
“I thank the Suffolk County Police Department’s Hate Crimes Unit for taking this crime seriously and following the evidence no matter where it led,” he continued. “Such conduct will not be tolerated in Suffolk County.”
A spokesperson for the Village of Rockville Centre said the village “does not comment on personnel matters.”
According to a post on the village’s Facebook page, Murphy was elevated to detective in 2022. In 2018, Murphy, then a police officer, received special honors from the Town of Hempstead for his hard work with the police department.
Murphy’s LinkedIn page notes that he served in the U.S. Marine Corps for eight years, and that he was deployed to Iraq in 2005 and 2007 and to Afghanistan in 2009.
He is scheduled to be arraigned on Wednesday at First District Court in Central Islip.
Top photo: In 2022, Rockville Centre Police Detective John Murphy was recognized by the department for his “dilligent” work to prevent crime in the village. The village posted a photo of Murphy on its Facebook page (Source: Facebook/Village of Rockville Centre).
