*Yet another attempt by the NYPD to increase awareness through social media has backfired.
You may recall their disastrous outreach on Twitter earlier this year – which called for photos of citizens supporting their neighborhood cops. It unfolded exactly as expected, courtesy of folks whose experiences with cops have been that of brutality and racial profiling.
In an effort to prove that no lesson was learned during that fiasco, ThinkProgress reports that an NYPD union, upset that the city is in “decline” and that residents are recording police activity, have come under criticism yet again for asking the public to turn their cameras around to record homeless people instead.
The campaign was launched by the Sergeants Benevolent Association (SBA) in New York City, and aims to track “the homeless lying in our streets, aggressive panhandlers, people urinating in public or engaging in open-air drug activity, and quality-of-life offenses of every type.”
However, after reviewing photos the SBA compiled on a Flickr page titled “Peek-A-Boo”(!), critics consider the crusade an attempt to shame the homeless. The page has since been removed.
SBA leader Ed Mullins called on law enforcement and members of the public to photograph and identify the location of homeless people and upload photos of them on Flickr, where Union officials would know where to dispatch proper authorities.
“We, ‘the Good Guys,’ are sworn to protect our citizens,” Mullins wrote in an email obtained by the NY Post. “Shouldn’t our public officials be held to the same standard?”
The social media campaign, he says, is a direct response to “failed policies, more homeless encampments on city streets, a 10 percent increase in homicides, and the diminishing of our hard-earned and well-deserved public perception of the safest large city in America.”
“Shouldn’t accountability go both ways?” Mullins asked, in reference to the fact that officers are being recorded on the job.
Mullins maintains that the campaign is about shaming the city officials he believes are responsible for the homeless epidemic.
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