Apparently police apologists forgot about the fiasco that was #MyNYPD. Despite the backlash received for that attempted publicity stunt the 17th annual “Thanks a Police Office Day” went on. And not surprisingly the Internet responded:
Public ire spilled over once again yesterday, with the 17th annual “Thank a Police Officer Day” going about as well as the #MyNYPD hashtag campaign did back in April. The observance, conceived and promoted under the banner of lawyer Andrew M. Hale’s Whole Truth Project, is meant to further that group’s aim of combating negative assumptions about cops.
Instead, social media users took the opportunity to reinforce those unflattering stereotypes.
The article provides a lot of Twitter comments from people who are unhappy about the police state we live in. It’s no surprise that the backlash was pretty severe this year after the fiasco in Ferguson, Missouri. As modern policing becomes more and more adversarial it’s likely that publicity stunts like “Thanks a Police Officer Day” will garner more and more angry responses.