The Sergeants Benevolent Association is spearheading the effort, emailing a letter to members Monday urging them and their families and friends to take pictures to document the decline of the city.
“As you travel about the city of New York, please utilize your smartphones to photograph 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,” says the letter from SBA President Ed Mullins, a major critic of Mayor Bill de Blasio.
August 10, 2015
"NYPD cops fed up with vagrants making life miserable in the city are taking matters into their own hands..."
"... by snapping photos of quality-of-life scofflaws and posting them online."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
40 comments:
Our DoJ is targeting those laws for being racist or something.
Good move! A picture is worth how many words?
Surely there will be a class action lawsuit on file, brought by some Hard Left organization, trying to block this -- on some ridiculous "invasion of privacy/right to be anonymously menacing" theory -- by the end of this week.
Wendy O. Williams had an art project going where she would surreptitiously photograph guys grabbing their own crotch.
Tacky or not, it sure put a quick end to the bane of public crotch grabbing!
If it's in public, I see no problem with people taking pictures of it.
I mean, it's no different than various other attempts to shame people into polite behavior. I don't think it will be effective, but if that's how they want to use their energy, eh.
The pictures on the article I see when I click through though are less "the city's suffering" and more "human tragedy." I'm not sure if they'll get what they want out of posting these photos. I want to *help* those people, and I'm not sure the best way to do it. The city, however, is going to have lots of ideas to help.
Will BlackLivesMatter hijack this?
Maybe the CrossFit people should go around taking photographs of fat people stuffing their pie holes.
The city, however, is going to have lots of ideas to help.
Ignoring that the city's "help" is a large reason why there are so many homeless. They will never think "Hey, let's loosen up regulations so homes and apartments can be built/rented"
Matthew, I appreciate your desire to help those afflicted by human tragedy. I would suggest, though, that no one can be helped who doesn't want to be helped.
For those individuals, I favor a zero-tolerance policy. They have no right to ruin the daily lives of those around them.
Didn't there used to be something where the police would publish photos of guys soliciting prostitutes? Guys behind on their child support? Stuff like that?
Take two Anacin . . . Headache's gone!!!
I think you may be missing the point, they're not trying to shame the vagrants, they're trying g to shame the mayor.
I like it. The number of panhandlers around Penn Station and elsewhere has exploded since De Blasio took office. And they're not the usual down-and-out mentally ill unwashed unfortunates who really need social services. They're white kids who look like they just graduated from Oberlin or Grinnell or UW Madison, who wear Nikes and have tattoos and pets.
Hipsters getting their wish -- under Mayor DeBlasio New York is returning to the gritty, edgy "no-radio-in-car" 70s.
Go ahead, bite the Big Apple, don't mind the maggots.
Best urban homeless guerilla theater I remember was an advocacy group in Berkeley, CA distributing flyers announcing a food-giveaway event...the address being the Mayor's home and the time being at breakfast on a weekday.
DeBlasio in months undoing his two predecessors' work of decades. It's something to behold.
"I think you may be missing the point, they're not trying to shame the vagrants, they're trying g to shame the mayor."
-- Well, in that case, they shouldn't tilt at windmills.
Take photos of all the parents together with their kids--the very ones who are doing their best to contribute to greenhouse gases, climate change and species extinction, and whose lifestyle is most heavily subsidized by taxpayers.
...whose lifestyle is most heavily subsidized by taxpayers.
Don't drag public sector union seat-warmers into this.
I smell many, many lawsuits..........
"DeBlasio in months undoing his two predecessors' work of decades. It's something to behold."
He's got a good blueprint to follow.
Oh this is wonderful.
A perfect counterpart to the ACLU's active, institutional promotion of street/cellphone video uploading of supposed police abuse. The ACLU app -they developed an app to make it easy -- is promoted in this article at (where else?) The Nation:
http://www.thenation.com/article/new-aclu-cellphone-app-automatically-preserves-video-police-encounters/
@ Levi Starks, who wrote (8/10/15, 12:47 PM): "I think you may be missing the point, they're not trying to shame the vagrants, they're trying to shame the mayor."
Yes, that's right. But the organizations who'll file the lawsuit(s) are trying to protect the mayor. And they'll claim that they're acting on behalf of the vagrants.
That's my point. What do you think I'm missing?
The mayor is letting the city of New York -- the "Big Apple," the symbol of American cities to the rest of the world -- go to hell in a handbasket. He couldn't be more actively promoting that result if he openly tried to do so. The vagrants are a symptom. The photo-posting campaign is attacking the cause. I approve; but I predict those who are the mayor's allies won't, because they think it's better for the city to go to hell than to do what's necessary to prevent that.
I think you may be missing the point, they're not trying to shame the vagrants, they're trying to shame the mayor.
I was wondering how the vagrants would see the pictures. Shaming the mayor -- that makes more sense.
The City of St Paul, Minnesota police department took down its gallery of guys that they picked up for soliciting prostitutes. I can't find it anywhere. I wonder why it's gone?
Scott said... [hush][hide comment]
The City of St Paul, Minnesota police department took down its gallery of guys that they picked up for soliciting prostitutes. I can't find it anywhere. I wonder why it's gone?
8/10/15, 3:22 PM
Too many City of St. Paul politicians and police officers made the album, would be my guess...
furious_a said...
DeBlasio in months undoing his two predecessors' work of decades. It's something to behold.
Civilization is a fragile thing. It's always easier to destroy something than to create it. It takes the skilled labor of many people working for months to years to build a building but any idiot with some gasoline and a match can burn it down in no time.
This is the Bizarro world version of the fashion blog Sartorialist. And are any of the homeless wearing shorts?
How do you know when vagrancy & public urination has gotten way out of hand in your city?
How about like this.
It's true that the number of homeless people on NYC streets is increasing, but that increase is coming from a very low base. It's nothing like the numbers that were encamped in NYC parks and on the streets in the 1980s.
This is mostly about the desire by the NYPD's rank and file to make sure that DeBlasio is a one-term mayor. They detest him for many reasons, but the most important one is that they know he will never back them up in any controversial situation. The last one-termer we had, you may recall, was David Dinkins, who was defeated by Rudy. The City's demographics have changed quite a bit since 1993 when Rudy was first elected, but the same issues that elected him are as powerful as ever, beginning with making sure people feel safe walking around in their neighborhoods. There's no demographic in NYC that wants to go back to the days when feeling safe at night walking home bordered on delusional. Between now and the next mayoral election (2017), the NYPD will do everything it can to convince voters that DeBlasio doesn't have their back either.
The difference now is people can remember when they didn't see this.
Levi Starks said...
"I think you may be missing the point, they're not trying to shame the vagrants, they're trying g to shame the mayor."
The mayor is a progressive. He can't feel shame because his policies never do wrong. These people are obviously trying to get back at NYC because of republican policies.
"They have no right to ruin the daily lives of those around them."
Rights are something the left has and the right doesn't. Don't you read The Nation ?
There are some confused folks in NYC who voted for Giuiliani in 1993 and DeBlasio in 2013. Some folks don't learn.
"A perfect counterpart to the ACLU's active, institutional promotion of street/cellphone video uploading of supposed police abuse. The ACLU app -they developed an app to make it easy -- is promoted in this article at (where else?) The Nation:"
I actually support the recording of police interactions with the citizenry. Accountability in the police ranks has been routinely dismissed prior to the advent of public mobile camera use.
I really do see Matthew's point about the 'human tragedy' angle preying upon (most) people's natural sympathies.
Many of the homeless are not mentally able to live on their own. They should be institutionalized for their own sake and for those around them. However, able-bodied, clear-minded panhandlers are a scourge who deserve derision.
I never understood the allure of San Francisco.
Rampant homelessness coupled with statist political policies in an overly-priced place with so-so weather.
I prefer Los Angeles's spread-out, sunshine-plagued fakery and indifference.
And they'll claim that they're acting on behalf of the vagrants.
No standing. Neener neener.
EMD@8:05pm/
Agreed, tho my wife likes S.F. better--mainly, I think, only because she only goes up for short-term nursing contracts as a travel nurse and doesn't have to put up with it 24/7/365 and also fight the real-estate hassle/dilemma.
Those homeless, how exactly are they going to be shamed into residential life by an online photo which they will never, ever see, much less care about if someone shows them on a non-homeless i-Phone?
I think regularly washing the sidewalks between 12am and 5am, but at irregular hours, would do a lot more to move them towards a shelter.
Post a Comment