#MyNYPD Promotes Photos Of Police Brutality After New York Police Department Twitter Campaign

Hey New York Police Department, you know what isn’t such a good idea? Asking Twitter users to trend #myNYPD! The NYPD apparently tried to launch a promotional campaign where it asked Twitterati to share happy pictures of themselves with police officers on the streets of NYC, but it didn’t turn out that way -- not at all.

“Do you have a photo w/ a member of the NYPD?” the department asked on its @NYPDnews Twitter page at 2 p.m. Tuesday. “Tweet us & tag it #myNYPD. It may be featured on our Facebook.” That decision most likely brings some regrets now.

Instead, users shared hundreds of violent pictures of officers getting into altercations with New Yorkers on the street. Some of the first few images that pop up show an elderly man with a bloodied face being hustled off by two officers with his arms pinned behind his back and another shows three cops restraining a woman who looks like she’s choking.

Anonymous, the loose global network of activist and hacktivist entities, got involved in the trend. Someone using the Anonymous label tweeted the hashtag #poltwt and said it is something that cops apparently used to share images.

“Poltwt” means “police tweet,” according to hashtags.org but the images it shows after Anonymous’ tweet are inappropriate. Anonymous with the @YourAnonNews has nearly 1.25 million followers, and the #MyNYPD hashtag only seemed to become more popular after the #poltwt tweet.

The NYPD has not yet responded to the backlash that ensued, even though violent pictures of police brutality have practically gone viral. The original tweet still remains on their page and a few pictures of “happy” residents with officers were posted to their official account.

Some of the responses to the #MyNYPD trend have been posted below:

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