Patrick Lynch (police officer)

Lynch was born in Bayside, Queens to an Irish Catholic family. His father was a subway motorman for 30 years. He went to Monsignor Scanlan High School in the Bronx.

Lynch worked for a short time as a New York City Subway conductor, but on January 4, 1984, he became a police officer with the New York City Police Department. He has been described as being the most powerful police union chief in the world, having served in this role since 1999 and winning reelection to a fifth term in 2015.[1][2] Lynch makes $65,382 per year as a police officer and $65,382 per year as the head of the union.[3] He has been described as "New York City's Blue Bulldog"[1] for being the head of the 23,000-member Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York.[4]

Lynch is married to Kathleen Casey, and has two sons, both of whom are New York City police officers.[1]

Lynch has a history of conflicting with New York City Hall.[5] In 2007, he stated that the PBA "could never support former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for any elected office."[6] He was a huge critic of Police Commissioner Ray Kelly as well as Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Lynch spoke outwardly against the city's teachers' union boss Michael Mulgrew for co-sponsoring Al Sharpton's rally against stop-and-frisk, saying "It is absolutely ridiculous that [Mulgrew] . . . would waste his members' dues to get involved with a march that has nothing to do with teachers or his union."[7] In the wake of 2014 killings of NYPD officers, Lynch turned his back on Mayor Bill de Blasio due to a belief held by himself that political climates set by the mayor and other government officials led to the killing of the two officers.[4] After the autopsy of Eric Garner, who died as a result of a choke hold in July 2014 while being suspected of selling loose cigarettes, he defended the actions of the NYPD officers.[8]

In November 2019, both Lynch and de Blasio criticized Bloomberg's apology for the stop-and-frisk policy which occurred under his administration.[9][10] Lynch released a statement that said, in part, “The apology is too little, too late”; "Mayor Bloomberg could have saved himself this apology if he had just listened to the police officers on the street”; “We said in the early 2000s that the quota-driven emphasis on street stops was polluting the relationship between cops and our communities”; and “His administration’s misguided policy inspired an anti-police movement that has made cops the target of hatred and violence, and stripped away many of the tools we had used to keep New Yorkers safe.”[9]

On August 18, 2020, Lynch and the PBA endorsed Donald Trump for President in the 2020 United States presidential election and appeared in the 2020 Republican National Convention.[11]