NYPD's Twitter outreach campaign goes terribly awry

On Tuesday, a New York Police Department-affiliated Twitter account posted the following benign message:

It was an attempt at community outreach. A valiant attempt, but a doomed one. Though the NYPD did get a smattering of legitimate responses, its critics quickly hijacked the hashtag with a torrent of images of alleged police brutality and incompetence. A sampling:

You can find plenty more pictures (some NSFW) here.

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Really, shouldn't the NYPD have seen this one coming? The department essentially said, "Here, we have made a hashtag for you all to document in one place your virulent displeasure with our controversial practices. Enjoy!"