Jim Comey has been paying attention to the voices of America. What he’s learned is how we latch on to simplistic slogans that strike a chord among the unwary. This wasn’t exactly an epiphany, as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York had a double secret department dedicated solely to coming up with cool platitudes back when Comey was a trial assistant there.

But America has entered a golden age of simplistic slogans over the past few years, and millions rally behind slogans that don’t bear up to scrutiny. Why not make it work for law enforcement? And who better to voice the rallying cry than the director of the FBI? That would be Jim. Last week, he did his grand unveiling of the slogan that would fix the horrible public relations fiasco that has sapped the blind faith of America in support of his team, and out came his uber-cool effort: the Viral Video Effect.

James Comey, the director, said that while he could offer no statistical proof, he believed after speaking with a number of police officials that a “viral video effect” — with officers wary of confronting suspects for fear of ending up on a video — “could well be at the heart” of a spike in violent crime in some cities.

“There’s a perception that police are less likely to do the marginal additional policing that suppresses crime — the getting out of your car at 2 in the morning and saying to a group of guys, ‘Hey, what are you doing here?’” he told reporters.

It was a combination of the thing that kids find totally persuasive, viral video, ranging from adorable cat videos to the ones that made Comey cringe, police officers murdering people for no reason, and the CSI Effect that played so well to juries a decade ago to remind them the police only used hard evidence on television, and in real life, actual evidence didn’t exist and they should never expect the prosecution to prove guilt when the jury would do better to just assume it and trust that the government would never prosecute anyone who wasn’t guilty.

The reaction to Comey’s brilliant scheme was swift and brutal.

“He ought to stick to what he knows,” James O. Pasco Jr., executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police, said in a telephone interview. The organization has more than 330,000 members.

“He’s basically saying that police officers are afraid to do their jobs with absolutely no proof,” Mr. Pasco said.

Even the curiously-named, insufferably pompous and bizarrely conflicted Law Enforcement Leaders To Reduce Crime & Incarceration, of which Comey’s closest ally, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, is a putative member (along with NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton and former felon extraordinaire, Bernie Kerik, because you can’t make this stuff up), called bullshit.

Director Comey’s recent comments about a ‘viral video effect’ are unfounded, and frankly, damaging to the efforts of law enforcement. I’ve talked to police officers around the country who are deeply offended by ongoing speculation that crime is increasing because we’re scared of the public, and afraid to do our jobs. In fact, our country is experiencing historically low crime rates, and recent analyses show that overall crime rates in our largest cities were nearly identical last year as to previous years. Leading research shows there’s no empirical evidence to back his claims. The comments also ignore the dedication and call to serve that most officers have, and they distract from important conversations our country needs to have about reform that aims to truly bring down both crime and unnecessary incarceration.

Suffice it to say that the cops are not on board with Comey’s PR campaign.  It’s not that they think video of their beating and killing people is the best thing since sliced bread, but that the implication is that they’re a bunch of cowards, afraid to leave their patrol cars at night. The viral video shows the cowards and killers.

It requires little logic to explain why Comey’s cool claim fails rationally, that the video was never more than the tool by which police conduct on the street that had been historically denied could no longer be plausibly dismissed by some of the tried-and-true rhetoric.

Prosecutor: Why would a police officer beat/tase/shoot someone for no reason, as the officer harbors no personal animosity toward Mr. Green. In contrast, Mr. Green is a heinous criminal, who clearly has a motive to lie about the officer and impugn his integrity.

Defense lawyer: The defendant, a nun who has taken an oath of poverty, chastity and obedience, with no prior record, was unarmed, and yet appears before this Court with seven broken ribs, a fractured femur, and the bloody imprint of a Glock across her face, covering her broken nose and eye socket, your honor. This was a beating.

Judge: It is unfathomable that an experienced officer, who has won many awards for valor and uniform maintenance, would do such a thing unless provoked and without any alternative to protect his life from the defendant’s vicious attack on the officer’s gun with her face. Why would he do such a terrible thing? It’s impossible. Detained.

This amalgam of a thousand arguments from the days before the ubiquity of video proved that it not only happens, but happens with regularity. Not always. Miraculously, not enough that the argument still doesn’t resonate whenever there isn’t a video to prove it an absurd lie, but the certainty that no cop ever beat a perp for no reason has been shaken.

The problem isn’t video, but that cops engage in the conduct caught on video.

The irony is that even when the police know they’re being recorded, some still engage in wanton violence. It’s not that police like the idea that their conduct can no longer be hidden behind cheap arguments and denials, but that they are more offended by the suggestion that they’re a bunch of wimps and cowards than that they’re brutal killers.

While Comey thought he could save the day by coming up with a slogan around which upstanding Americans who appreciated law enforcement could rally, he failed to adequately grasp two aspects of the conundrum of cops caught on camera: Cops would rather be outed as killers than cowards, and cops really don’t care enough about getting caught on video to stop beating and killing people.