The New York Police Department recently released a Tweet on the popular social media site Twitter recently asking citizens of New York to post pictures of their interactions with New York City police officers. The Tweet read; “Do you have a photo w/ a member of the NYPD? Tweet us and tag it #myNYPD it may be used on our Facebook.” What seemed like a perfectly good way to get the NYPD more popular with the younger generation has backfired in an enormous way.
The tag #myNYPD was intended to be a way for people of New York City to show off good experiences that they had with the officers of the New York City Police Department, but it seems like people only have bad things to show. The #myNYPD tag is now being used for people to show instances of police brutality and indecency throughout the city. There have been many shocking pictures that have showed up showing New York City police officers abusing their power in many ways. The images show officers doing a range of things from simple traffic infractions, like parking in front of a fire hydrant, to much more graphic and disturbing things like using excessive force and brutality.
The images show police officers beating people with batons, slamming them up against cars, and lunging at onlookers. It seems that the #myNYPD tag is a perfect example of a great plan being poorly executed. Don’t ask people to post their experiences with your police department if you are not confident that all of your officers conduct themselves in a professional way. It seems that the NYPD has learned this lesson the hard way.