The Flipside

Yesterday, I was going to rehearsal and picked up my favorite local rag: AMNY. The cover caught my eye:

THEIR BEAT'S A GRIND

The picture on the front cover showed two NYPD officers in full uniform "dirty-dancing" with two young women (read: girls) who were participating in the West Indian Day Parade. Apparently, someone had posted a video on the web of the officers right after the parade hoopla had ended. The NYPD is investigating.

The article inside went on to quote several city residents saying things like:
"Oh My God...they're supposed to be looking out for our safety and not dancing with random girls."

She's right. There's no argument here. It looks to me like the two bozos in the pictures are very young cops who were just trying to have fun with the crowd. No excuses; it was a bad judgement call. These cops are probably a little too young to understand that what they do reflects upon the entire force.

But here's where I take issue with the issue at hand: the headline insinuates that being a cop is not a hard job, and especially presents the idea that this parade was an easy post...have we not since learned that this is the most violent parade that NYC hosts in a year's time? Was I not up all night, worried about my husband, as people were shooting and stabbing each other at the Jump Up?

Those two cops were wrong. Period.

But I resent the fact that any resident in NYC would trivialize what my husband does and gives to our city on a daily basis.

Period.