New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton was unfazed by and even pleased with the backlash from the department’s #myNYPD Twitter campaign.
“I kind of welcome the attention,” he said on Wednesday, according to the New York Daily News. “We really broke the numbers yesterday.”
On Tuesday, the NYPD invited people to submit photos of themselves with police officers, but people started tweeting photos of police brutality with the department’s hashtag. More than 110,000 Twitter accounts responded, according to the Daily News.
The backlash even spread to other cities, with people creating iterations like #myLAPD and #myELAS.
“Most of the pictures I looked at, they’re old news,” Bratton said on Wednesday. “They’ve been out there for a long time.”
“Often times police activities are lawful, but look awful,” he added.