Probably the least of their problems.
The NYPD haven’t quite had the best pubic image as of late, and their attempts at connecting to citizens via social media in that past have been a failure to say in the least (i.e. the #MyNYPD fail ). According to the New York Post, the NYPD’s remedy to mend their frayed relationship with the public is a 34 page handbook that will teacher the boys in blue how to tap into their comedic side on Twitter. According to The Post:
It goes on to offer tips on how to make people LOL in 140 characters or less, citing real tweets from San Francisco cops as examples.
One reads: “Officers just arrested a naked man in the bison paddock in GG [Golden Gate] Park. The bison seemed unimpressed.”
By contrast, it tells cops not to post boring, jargon-filled tweets, such as, “Officers responded to an apartment on the 2500 block of Turk St. regarding a burglary.”
The initiative will hold NY’s finest to a quota of at least four tweets a day, which seems excessive to some. “It’s a lot more work … Now I have to worry about social media on top of everything else I have to do,” a police source told The Post.
The handbook has several other pointers such as “refrain from posting information that is confidential in nature”, and “avoid tweets that threaten violence or include obscenity.”
The handbook seems to be well intentioned, but how about a handbook on other stuff, like say… not choking unarmed citizens to death perhaps? How do you feel the NYPD’s Twitter comedy course? Let us know on Twitter and Facebook?
Khari Clarke doesn’t need a course on Twitter comedy, it comes natural. Follow him (@KINGCLARKEIII).
