Some people are clueless to how they are truly perceived. This idea was written about in the classic Hans Christian Andersen tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” In the story, a great king was tired of wearing the fine silks and robes he was accustomed to and sent for a tailor to help create a wardrobe like none other. He was duped by the tailor into believing he was wearing the finest linens and silks until one day an honest child simply told him that he was actually nude.
The NYPD is like that Emperor. Suffering from a PR nightmare as a result of the Stop and Frisk policies that had been implemented in the Big Apple since the 90s during the mayoral administration of Rudy Giuliani. They decided to take use Twitter to help their image. Monday they asked followers to post pictures of positive interactions with the boys in blue with the hashtag #MyNYPD. Instead, they were inundated with pictures of the New York Police Department abusing their power with the citizens of New York and engaging in recklessness with impunity. This clearly wasn’t what they were expecting. But it’s definitely what was needed, honesty.
What the hell were they thinking? It takes a delusional mofo downtown at police headquarters to come up with a pompous search for “good” social media from the people when their reputation among those people is soiled. Photos of women being choked, a man’s leg being run over by a cop on a motor scooter, and another woman’s hair being pulled while in handcuffs are but a handful of the hundreds of photos that have been posted to Twitter since yesterday. This is clearly something that should have been thought through a bit better. And now, the emperor of NY, the police department, are no longer wearing fine linens and silks. They have been left exposed and are butt-ass-naked.
