Engage authentically.  And apparently, they did, even though they wear a gun and shield on duty.  No, they aren’t looking to manufacture the appearance of expertise to get your business, but merely to share the deep thoughts and feelings that cops have when civilians aren’t around.  Except when you post it on Facebook, civilians are around, even if only virtually.  It’s like being best friends with a cop, provided your best friend is outrageous racist, hates your guts and thinks you’re garbage who ought to die.

From the New York Times :

They called people “animals” and “savages.” One comment said, “Drop a bomb and wipe them all out.”

Hearing New York police officers speak publicly but candidly about one another and the people they police is rare indeed, especially with their names attached. But for a few days in September, a raw and rude conversation among officers was on Facebook for the world to see — until it vanished for unknown reasons.

For unknown reasons? Fair enough, Let’s take a wild guess then.  They were talking about the West Indian American Day Parade in Brooklyn.  Some parade details, like St. Patrick’s Day, cops like. Others, like the West Indian Day Parade, not so much.  And they authentically engaged about it. A lot.

The comments in the online group, which grew over a few days to some 1,200 members, were at times so offensive in referring to West Indian and African-American neighborhoods that some participants warned others to beware how their words might be taken in a public setting open to Internal Affairs “rats.”  

But some of the people who posted comments seemed emboldened by Facebook’s freewheeling atmosphere. “Let them kill each other,” wrote one of the Facebook members who posted comments under a name that matched that of a police officer.

And these are the comments that are printable in a family paper. They merely express hatred and the desire to see them all die. 

“Welcome to the Liberal NYC Gale,” said another, “where if the cops sneeze too loud they get investigated for excessive force but the ‘civilians’ can run around like savages and there are no repercussions.”

“They can keep the forced overtime,” said one writer, adding that the safety of officers comes “before the animals.”  

Wrote another: “Bloodbath!!! The worst detail to work.”

How bad must it be for cops to be willing to turn away overtime, their very lifeblood?  That it turns out the cops think blacks are subhuman would be viewed with outrage and disgust by most of us, outsiders though we are, but there’s a far more insidious (yes, it can get more insidious) than mere racial hatred.

“Filth,” wrote a commenter who identified himself as Nick Virgilio, another participant whose name matched that of a police officer. “It’s not racist if it’s true,” yet another wrote.

It’s that last quote that is most revealing.  There isn’t going to be any ebony and ivory moment here. The writer knows that the expressions of hatred toward a race fall under the rubric of “racism,” and that the words are not supposed to be spoken, but deep down, deep in their heart of hearts, they know something that the rest of us don’t, and perhaps never will. They know it’s true.

 
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

This isn’t to say that every cop in New York City, or your city, or any other city, is outrageously racist.  There are a lot of cops and they hold diverse views, just like everyone else.  But cops see everyone who doesn’t have a shield differently. We, the shieldless, are the “them” to their “us.”  Their eyes see suspicion everywhere. Their eyes see all the bad, whether real or imagined.  And oftentimes it’s real.

That every cop isn’t racist, however, doesn’t alter the pervasive groupthink, a cultural view of people where they believe they know better than we do. A cultural view that relies on our deluding ourselves with some Utopian vision of equality and racial love, when their truth is they’re animals, savages.  It’s far easier to beat an animal. It’s harder to tell lies that put someone in prison for life when you see them as human beings.

Even those police officers who don’t hate people because of the color of their skin or their national origin struggle to see “them” as real people.  Some win the struggle. Most don’t.

Social Media pundits talk about the great wonders of the new medium, how it enables so many wondrous connections that could never before be made.  If we ignore the self-serving adjectives, we can appreciate the point when something like this shows up on Facebook.  Unless you have the opportunity to sit in on a group of cops sipping some brewskis after they’ve completed an overtime shift, you will never hear such frank talk about the job.

“I say have the parade one more year,” wrote a commenter who identified himself as Dan Rodney, “and when they all gather drop a bomb and wipe them all out.”

Now that they know that social media isn’t private enough to keep the animals (or animal lovers) out, they may never have another Facebook discussion like this one again.  Or at least not with names attached. So seize this opportunity to get a better feeling for who the real person is behind the badge.  And maybe it will provide a better understanding of why the officer would be inclined to do what he did to your client, friend, son or daughter. 

We may never get a chance to watch New York’s Finest authentically engage like this well again.