Nine days after a Staten Island police officer placed Eric Garner into a fatal choke hold, angry New York City residents took to the streets in Harlem. “As long as [the police] think they can get away with anything no matter what,” Reverend Al Sharpton shouted out to the rally that assembled outside Manhattan’s House of Justice, “they’re going to keep doing it.”
Now some current and former cops are starting to speak up for themselves. Earlier this week, a retired Jersey City police captain named Robert Cubby posted a blog entry on LawEnforcementToday.com titled “United We Stand for NYPD.” The post declares that the law enforcement community should come together to support the officers that were involved in Garner’s death, which has been deemed a homicide.
“The career of those involved from the NYPD dangles by a slender thread,” Cubby writes. “The officers face the worst possible nightmare; loss of their career and being thrown in jail for a good portion of the rest of their lives.”
In the latest twist, to show solidarity, officers (and their friends) are being asked to change their Facebook profile picture to an upside-down and backward NYPD flag—a flag that was first introduced to the department in 1919. An upside-down flag is a signal of distress.
Read More | "NYPD Cops Launch Choke Hold Protest on Facebook" | Eric Markowitz | Vocativ