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NYPD's Twitter Campaign Backfires
An anonymous reader writes "A NYPD community outreach campaign designed to show images of citizens with cops turned ugly quickly when a deluge of images depicting police brutality came in. From the article: 'The responses soon turned ugly when Occupy Wall Street tweeted a photograph of cops battling protesters with the caption "changing hearts and minds one baton at a time." Other photos included an elderly man bloodied after being arrested for jaywalking.' Police Commissioner Bill Bratton says, 'I kind of welcome the attention,' of the #myNYPD project."
...well, there were batons.
Well now we know of one more sociopath who is gainfully employed.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
...then they wouldn't consider this a failure. Truth and evidence should never be considered a failure. Identifying police brutality so that those individual cops can be punished, and thus hopefully prevent other cops from doing the same, should be considered a success. But obviously that's not how it works.
There are plenty of good cops out there, but by not punishing the bad cops it makes them all look bad.
I keep seeing this referred to as "bad PR" or (as here) "ugly images" as though that's the problem. NO, YOU FUCKS! THE PROBLEM IS COPS BEATING THE CRAP OUT OF PEOPLE!
I understand that the police can go too far, but protesters and rioters certainly can and do go too far as well.
We hold the police to a higher standard for a very good reason. If the occupy people did that crap to me, I'd probably stop so I could kick the guys ass. But I'm not a cop, I'm not on duty, and it's not my job to put up with that kind of crap. Annoyed with protesters? Don't get a job as a cop dead center in the protest capital of the country.
One of these shows a police officer pinning a guy to the ground with his knee so that he can cuff him (presumably after the guy already did something wrong and tried to resist arrest.) That is hardly what I'd call brutality.
I've seen full video for something like that. The person was compliant, but the police treated him roughly anyway, knowing that the abuse apologists like you would justify it.
Learn to love Alaska
The nice thing about the knee-pin move is that, while it lacks the drama and blood of a good mag-lite to the face and thus plays comparatively well for the cameras, there is a relatively thin line between 'pinning' and 'compressive asphyxia'. Just a matter of how much weight you put on that knee...
"There are plenty of good cops out there, ..."
I have heard of no evidence for there being ANY good cops. If there were any, it would be in the news that instead of various projects uncovering criminal behavior, it would be the cops, themselves, and it never seems to happen. There are cops who are murderers, rapists, thieves, and just plain thugs, and the rest of them are guilty of covering for the criminals. What happened to the NYPD officers who gang sodomized that Jamaican? The POLICE OFFICERS UNION pressured the city not to throw the SOBs in jail.
"The guy (looked to be in his 50's or 60's) was acting like a baby trying to get attention and it was so cringe worthy that if I was there I would have been tempted to slap him and tell him to grow up for once in his life."
And what if he had a bone disease? Bone spurs? Even a tiny bump can cause the most excruciating pain, you ill-educated person. I should know, I have lumbosacral arthritis and if I even so much as tap my spine/pelvis area I'm on the ground crying.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
By that logic, the Nazis who killed Jews were just doing what they were hired for. Fuck you and your fallacious logic.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
"presumably after the guy already did something wrong and tried to resist arrest."
Is that anything like the below case, where a passenger in a car where the driver did run stayed in the car and waited for police to return. After they came back he slowly exited the car with his hands up and made no attempt to flee or resist and they still chucked him to the ground, pinned him down, tased him, punched and kicked him multiple times and then heaved him face first into the back of a police cruiser with his hands cuffed behind his back?
http://www.bringmethenews.com/...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Even better, Just stumbled across this when checking ABC news. Apparently one officers idea of "crowd control" is to trip and shove high school girls at a football game.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/video...
No, but you apparently intend to remain willfully ignorant of the whole point of what I was saying. Maybe you should start by taking a look at the case I mentioned?
Police corruption is a real thing. Even when there is incredibly strong evidence, detailing everything that happened, police still band together and cover each other when they fuck up. Sometimes, the result is that they get away with a minor offense such as a traffic violation, and other times it directly results in the death of another person. If you honestly think it is acceptable for police to behave in that sort of fashion, then there's something wrong with you.
To the NYPD, "community outreach" means a longer baton.
Yes. Now, would that excuse let me walk away with a not guilty verdict, or better yet avoid a trial entirely, after I'd beaten someone bloody with a baton? Because I don't think it would.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Cops are humans, and as such they don't want to have to be denigrated like that any more than you do.
Of course they don't. But they chose a profession that requires them to uphold a higher standard. Why? Well, for the idealistic rationale: because someone who chooses to be a policeman, they are presumed to prefer order and law over chaos. Thus, they are expected to be the guy who walks away from an insult rather than starting a barfight. If they don't have those sorts of ideals, they shouldn't become a cop.
The more practical reason? Because they usually carry deadly weapons or other arms that could seriously hurt people. The general public does not generally carry such weapons everywhere (except in Texas**). To be trusted to carry a deadly weapon and to act on behalf of the state, and person has to be able to contain his/her emotions and not allow those emotions to cause a random violent outburst... otherwise, innocent people could be seriously harmed or killed.
Think about this: If you deliberately provoke a reaction, do you think it's possible that you just might succeed in getting one?
Sure. But as a cop, you're not acting on behalf of your personal "honor" or emotions or whatever. You're an officer of the state, and you must be trained to follow orders and procedure, even when confronted with emotional or tense situations.
[** That was a joke.]
Times that policemen got respect automatically are over. The enforcement of unjust laws, such as most related to the war on drugs, undermines public respect for the police, at least amongst a large minority. I think that it the greatest danger of unjust or ineffective laws.
The best thing the police could do to improve its image, would be to advocate the abolotion of unjust laws, even if these provide them with easy money.