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Photo via david_shankbone/Flickr (CC By 2.0) | Remix by Fernando Alfonso III

Tone-deaf #askacop conversation was received appropriately horribly

As one user wrote, "why did you think this was a good idea?"

 

Kevin Collier

IRL

Posted on Dec 17, 2014   Updated on May 29, 2021, 11:20 pm CDT

For the upteenth time, Twitter has exploded with outrage when police used a hashtag to try a tone-deaf conversation.

This time, it was for a CNN roundtable discussion on police and civilian relations Tuesday night. Before the show, CNN put out an open call for question from Twitter with the hashtag #askacop.

In theory, a representative sample of questions would be put to that panel of officers. But responses got angry quickly.

https://twitter.com/eggology_/status/545011001268400129

This is far from the first time that Twitter users have bitterly responded to police. In April, the New York Police Department used the #myNYPD hashtag, prompting a litany of photos of police using excessive force. Later, it tried #wehearyou in response to the non-indictment of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man choked to death on camera by an officer, and was met with responses like “Just like cop heard ‘I can’t breathe’ 11x before killing him.”

As for CNN, they only used one tweet in the show, at least when it was later posted online, and it was hardly inflammatory.

It’s a real shame, too, that they didn’t even address this one:

Photo via david_shankbone/Flickr (CC By 2.0) | Remix by Fernando Alfonso III

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*First Published: Dec 17, 2014, 2:00 pm CST