NYPD Officers Caught Wearing T-Shirts
Professing Their Love For "Hunting Of Man"
A tipster passes along this "disturbing" photo taken outside Queens Criminal Court showing members of the [Queens Warrant] squad on-duty, shortly after escorting a woman into court for a misdemeanor charge.
Last week, the Manhattan warrant squad evacuated a public housing building for hours when they mistakenly believed that a wanted man was barricaded in an apartment.
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A 2008 Daily News profile notes that the Queens Warrant Squad's mission is "to apprehend the worst of the worst: people wanted in homicides, nonfatal shootings and strong-arm robberies. Their quarry faces heavy jail time. Some would rather die than get caught." One detective describes coming "within a hair of death." Apparently the emotions stirred are so atavistic and primal they can only be adequately described by wearing them on a t-shirt.
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We've sent an email to NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Public Information Paul Browne inquiring as to whether the shirts violate department policy. We don't expect a response.
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We've sent an email to NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Public Information Paul Browne inquiring as to whether the shirts violate department policy. We don't expect a response.
http://gothamist.com/2013/06/18/nypd_t-shirts_profess_love_for_hunt.php
This isn't the first time that quote has been used, badly, by NYPD personnel.
In 1996, members of the Street Crime Unit, a plainclothes task force which roamed neighborhoods looking for guns, had T-shirts made with the same quote. In 1999, members of the Street Crime Unit shot unarmed Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo 41 times and killed him. The unit was later disbanded.
Former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik once told his subordinates: "I am a hunter of men." Kerik went on to declare he would hunt down anyone who he thought was disloyal.
And Kerik's predecessor, Howard Safir, in 1991, used the quote to boast about his work for the U.S. Marshals Service on 60 Minutes. Safir went on the show hoping to turn his career into a book or movie deal. Didn't happen.
Whether The Gothamist got a response or not, that last sentence in their article refers to another aspect of the "cop culture," in NYPD and elsewhere, the "Blue Wall of Silence." See succeeding posts.
