According to organisers of several anti-police brutality organisations, the number of people supporting change in the way police forces deal with their citizenry has doubled practically overnight. The sudden expansion in calls for change began after the NYPD introduce a new clickable heart shaped icon on their website to indicate whether a browser “liked” the item.

“I’ve been doing this for 26 years and I’ve never seen a movement like this gain so much traction,” Opal Robinson, a community organiser specialising in issues that affect African-Americans, explained to The (un)Australian. “There’s just something about the times that inspires this kind of passion in the youth of today.”

Shaun King, a social justice advocate and writer for the New York Daily News told The (un)Australian that this could the first steps towards a post-racial America: “This may be the first time we’ve had a large number of white allies willing to speak up about the actions of the police. The passion I see in the numbers of people of all races, I didn’t think was possible even as little as two days ago.”

In an email response to questioning from The (un)Australian, a spokesperson for the New York Police Union refused to acknowledge the backlash, but hyped that the NYPD would be introducing an unnecessary website redesign and a change in privacy policy that would give ownership of anything posted on the website to the NYPD.

Matthew Farthing is the Police Reporter for the (un)Australian. He has recently been documenting the ‘Ferguson Effect’, a recent trend where police officers are afraid to do their job for fear that they’ll be caught not doing their job. 

https://twitter.com/MattJFarthing

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Categories: World

Tags: Matthew Farthing, NYPD, Police Brutality, Race, The unAustralian, Twitter