New Crime City
21st June 2021
The demonization of the police in New York City and the criminalization of normal police behavior accelerated under Mayor de Blasio. Social media and cell phones have certainly amplified the tendency. Arresting a resisting subject is never pretty: it can involve multiple officers pulling someone to the ground, manipulation of limbs and joints in directions counter to natural movement, “compliance strikes,” and the use of batons or pepper sprays and even tasers or dogs. Such images can provoke reactions of disgust and rage and a sense that the police are essentially armed bullies, or just another gang of thugs.
Brutality does happen, of course—though the introduction of body cams demonstrates it much less than was anticipated by anti-cop activists and the plaintiffs’ bar—and deserves condemnation when it’s real. But the cause of public safety and trusted law enforcement is not served when elected officials jump on every WorldStarHipHop video and join the chorus of denunciation without getting all the facts or even caring to find out what they really are.
UPDATE: De Blasio’s New York
UPDATE: From Broken Windows to Broken Streets
UPDATE: The Assault on the NYPD