NY Police Twitter Campaign Backfires

This is hilarious! The New York City Police Department has a Twitter account, and somebody there thought it would be a good idea to ask people to post images of themselves and NYPD officers on Twitter, just to show how much they meant to the community. I guess they had images in their head of kindly benevolent officers helping little old ladies cross the street or handing out candy to children or something like that. "Do you have a photo with a member of the NYPD? Tweet us & tag it #myNYPD. It may be featured on our Facebook page," the department posted on its NYPD News Twitter feed. Of course the idea was to fuel a feel-good, low-cost public relations campaign. 

Well, guess what? Those are not the kind of images and tweets they got back. Some samples of the deluge of pictures they received were of alleged police brutality, including many arrests of demonstrators that included such presumed low-lights as an officer pulling the hair of a handcuffed young black woman and another of the bloodied face of an 84-year-old stopped for jaywalking. Another image showing police after striking a protester brought the remark "Here the #NYPD engages with its community members, changing hearts and minds one baton at a time." Also largely criticized was the department's unpopular "stop and frisk" policy, which many argue unfairly targets minority youth. The NYPD so far has yet to post any happy shots on its Facebook page from its request for public submissions.

Oops!