Out Of Wall Street Protest, An Unlikely Celebrity: 'Hipster Cop'

Despite contacting "Hipster Cop" and the DCPI to conduct a proper interview, and tapping sources close to Detective Rick Lee in the 1st Precinct, the Gray Lady scored the exclusive with everyone's favorite internet meme. What does their Public Editor think about the Times trading signed copies of Neon Indian's most recent 7" for access?
Lee, who is 45 years old and does in fact reside in Staten Island, says, "I will reveal that I wear skinny jeans off-duty. I'm into fashion, always have been," adding that his suits are tailored to his specifications thanks to a friend who works for Ralph Lauren. On his internet fame, Lee says, "I think it's funny. I'm not a blog guy, so I haven't really seen a lot of the hipster mentions." We KNEW he was more of an Olivetti Manual kind of guy!
As a Community Affairs Detective in the precinct where the Occupy Wall Street protests have been, Lee is a busy man: he works overtime, seven days a week to maintain a dialogue between the police and the protesters, to "protect everybody's rights." Speaking to a group in Zuccotti Park yesterday, Lee said, "It's nothing personal—we just want you to stay safe. Not everybody likes us. Yes, 39 percent of my paycheck is taken out in taxes, so we have a lot in common."


Hipster Cop is not an ordinary police officer: He stands out from the uniformed crowd because he wears skinny ties and skinny trousers and he hangs with Tom Morello and wears ironically retro grandpa sweaters.


It seems the first picture of Hipster Cop was tweeted on Oct. 10. And since then, the curiosity mounted. Like any credible internet sensation, he got a lolcats-style picture proclaiming that he was "into pepper spray, before it was cool." And an Oct. 13 piece Gawker staff writer Adrian Chen posted to his Tumblr blog cemented his mystery:


When I met him, Hipster Cop was wearing a bright red Mister Rogers cardigan and a white button down with a clipped tie, grey wool slacks and spotless oxfords, a smirk on his face. He was the most sharply-dressed guy I had seen pretty much all week, and I work in Soho. Hipster Cop almost looked too well-dressed to be a Radiohead fan; like, maybe he only listened to LPs of obscure Japanese bands from the 80s. But I asked if he was bummed about Radiohead's no-show: "They're finished," he joked. "Nobody's going to listen to their music anymore."


Today, the mystery has unraveled. Hipster Cop is indeed a community affairs detective in the First Precinct named Rick Lee, a fact that had been established in the blogoshphere when they matched him to a picture on the NYPD's website.