Videos of water being dumped on police officers create stir

Post Reply New Topic

Cellphone videos of people brazenly dousing uniformed New York Police Department patrolmen with water have sparked outrage and led police officials to urge the force not to tolerate the behavior.

Police on Tuesday were looking into two recent instances captured on video clips widely circulated on social media that show four on-duty officers — all sent to break up unruly gatherings around open fire hydrants during a recent heat wave — getting soaked themselves as onlookers jeer.

In one of the videos, an officer making an arrest of a suspect in Harlem appears to get hit in the head with a red plastic bucket as he and his partner are splashed with water. The other shows two officers getting repeatedly doused as they walk down a Brooklyn street looking sheepish as a woman's voice in the background is heard saying, "Oh, they violated them."

At a police event Tuesday, NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan said the department wants to make arrests in both cases but drew a sharp distinction between them. He described one as a potential assault on an officer doing his duty and the other a failure of officers to respond to a clear provocation.

In Brooklyn, "Someone thought it was all right and take a bucket of water and toss it over a cop's head," Monahan said. "That's not all right. . Any cop who thinks that's all right, that they can walk away from something like that, maybe should consider whether or not that this is the profession for them."

The appearance that the pranksters on both videos showed little fear of reprisal fueled accusations against Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio and other liberal politicians that their police reform policies have fostered a climate of disrespect for officers on the beat.

Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, said there's worry that the liquids in the buckets "could just as easily have been bleach, gasoline, or some other toxic substance."

The outcry comes at a time when de Blasio is already under fire from critics blasting him for delaying firing of the police officer involved in the chokehold death of Eric Garner and claiming he has neglected the city while he runs for president.

Asked about the dousings in an interview Monday with local news channel NY1, de Blasio responded that "they are two very different incidents, one of which was not confrontational, the other of which was. And I'll just state the obvious - it's not acceptable for anyone to resist arrest, it's not acceptable for anyone to interfere with the NYPD when they're effectuating an arrest."

The NYPD has circulated a memo throughout the nation's largest police department this week explaining that while verbal taunting doesn't break the law, someone can be charged with harassment, disorderly conduct or other crimes "where an individual intentionally sprays or douses a member of service with water while performing their duties."

I am curious about the unruly gatherings near open fire hydrants during a heat wave. What were the people doing that was unruly. that attracted the attention of the police in the first place..and how bad was the heat wave?

I wonder if the heat wave played any role in this behavior, but none of the news sources are talking about that. Also a lot of people are criticizing the officers for not doing more to stop it...but if it really was a heat wave it was probably best for them not to further aggravate the situation at that time. Perhaps they were taking that into consideration.

The temps were near 100 and the humidity sky high. I can only guess what was unruly beforehand but once the water was dumped the crowds were into it.

Well then I think the police were right not to aggravate the situation. In that kind of heat people could have gotten a lot crazier. Also people can die of heat-stroke in that kind of heat especially under exertion. They probably didn't want to risk heat stroke themselves or end up with a death on their hands.

82° F high 68° F low is not that kind of heat. It is normal summer weather.

The high was 74 in New York that day:

https://www.accuweather.com/en/us/new-y ... her/349727

The high temperature was 74 the day the article was written which was Tuesday. The article mentioned the incidents happened during the “recent” heatwave. The official temperature was 90 or the previous 4 days before the article was written. The official New York City temperature is recorded in a very foliated area of Central Park that is not representative of the temperature in the concrete jungle streets. The high temperatures at area airports and at numerous weatherunderground stations in the NYC during the weekend was upper 90s to 100.

It didn't happen during 82 degree weather...the news sources confirm it was during a heat wave, so I am thinking it was closer to the 100 degrees with high humidity. Though I suppose none of the sources said exactly how hot it was that I saw...but they did use the term heat wave.

Still, 74 degrees is not exactly "Arctic" weather......