Police PR Departments Keep Showing Their Asses

[Nevilledog]

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Tweet text:

Nick Wing
@nickpwing
In @theappeal newsletter, I wrote about that gross NYPD tweet gloating over shoplifting arrests, the backlash, the rationale, and why police keep showing their asses—making clear that they don’t care about criticism of their enforcement priorities.

theappeal.org
Police PR Departments Keep Showing Their Asses
10:31 AM · Mar 1, 2022

https://theappeal.org/nypd-retail-theft-shoplifting-tweet/


Police in New York City make hundreds of arrests every day, the overwhelming majority of which we never hear anything about. But every so often, the public relations experts at the NYPD find a case so exemplary of the service their officers provide that they deem it worthy of global recognition.

Like last month, when the PR professionals who run the NYPD’s official Twitter account boasted to more than 700,000 followers that police had arrested 12 people who were allegedly responsible for stealing $1,800 worth of diapers, cold medicine, body wash, and laundry detergent. The tweet included side-by-side photos of three officers and the products laid out on a table as if it were a drug bust.

The backlash was swift, and perhaps entirely predictable to anyone not employed to do PR for the NYPD. The department quickly deleted the tweet, but the dunking was so furious that numerous media outlets wrote stories about their tone-deaf decision to celebrate the criminalization of poverty. Journalist and rapper AWKWORD later noted that one of the arresting officers had attracted dozens of misconduct complaints and cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawsuit settlements. Even U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, criticized the tweet.

After all, the goods in the NYPD’s photo were necessities. Even if the products were meant to be resold, these were likely crimes of survival: People who are otherwise stable don’t make a living hocking stolen diapers to bodegas. Then there’s the question of who was allegedly doing the stealing. As The Appeal’s Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg reported, two of the people arrested, including one 64-year-old woman, appeared to be living at homeless shelters. She was accused of taking about $20 worth of items—a bottle of laundry detergent and a bag of potato chips, according to the criminal complaint obtained by Weill-Greenberg.

*snip*

[Hav]

1. This was discussed on DU before

There's a difference between stealing because of a real need and organized groups stealing popular items they can easily sell. It's stupid to attack the police if those who were caught were organized criminal gangs.

[cbabe]

2. Les Mis.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. They do it because they can, and people continue to throw money at them.

[Demovictory9]

4. Kick