The NYPD is clearly suffering from a lack of self-awareness. Earlier today the department (foolishly) asked the Twitterverse to tweet photos of their favorite flicks with NYPD officers, under the hashtag #MYNYPD.
This was obviously a big mistake.
Aside from its bad reputation in the Big Apple, the NYPD is pretty much known around the country (and maybe the world, at this point) for corruption, brutality, racist practices, and the senseless killing of countless men, women, and children of color.
To their credit, the NYPD has been at this game of morally depraved behavior since way back when. In 1961, Frank Lino –of the Bonnano crime family —accused investigators of shooting him in the hand with a staple gun, and sticking a broom stick up his rectum.
In 1973 NYPD officer Thomas Shea gunned down 10-year-old Clifford Glover believing that he had a gun. Shea was acquitted of the homicide by a predominately White jury. Three years after Glover lost his life, Officer Robert Tornsey shot and killed 15-year-old Randolph Evans of Brooklyn. Tornsey was responding to a call in the housing project where Tornsey lived. He reportedly approached the boy and a group of other youngsters and shot Tornsey in the head at point blank range, then jumped in his squad car and headed back to his precinct.
Tornsey was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and committed to a mental hospital. Three years later the state decided he was no longer a harm to himself and others and released him.
Now lets flash forward to 1997. Brooklyn NYPD officer Justin Volpe led the brutal beating and sodomy of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima, who was arrested after he was mistaken for an assailant that punched the officer in the face. Louima was beaten with batons, had his teeth broken, was strip searched and sexually assaulted by the officers. Volpe admitted to being wrong about Louima punching him, but pleaded not guilty to several counts stemming from the incident. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
And let’s not forget the turn of the millennium. Amadou Diallo, Patrick Dorismond, Timonthy Stanbury, Sean Bell, and countless others brutalized, murdered, attacked, raped, and more, by NYPD officers.
Granted, the NYPD probably didn’t think a simple hashtag would force them into a history lesson, but it’s time they got schooled.
Check out some of the tweets the #MYNYPD hashtag received.
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Photos: Twitter/Facebook
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