From time to time, videos make their way onto the internet and become viral, meaning that people not even from the same country have probably seen it. Sometimes these viral videos are of amazing musical performances, sometimes they’re just of cats doing cute things, sometimes they’re of a baby brother biting the finger of his older brother, and sometimes they can be disturbing, like how some videos show police allegedly committing excessive force.Sometimes these videos don’t show from start to end, meaning that sometimes they are taken out of context, and the FBI’s director James Comey has blamed these viral videos for being the reason violent crimes are spiking. Apparently he thinks that because officers are worried of ending up on these viral videos that they are being less aggressive when it comes to policing, although that might not necessarily be a bad thing.
According to Comey, “There’s a perception that police are less likely to do the marginal additional policing that suppresses crime — the getting out of your car at 2 in the morning and saying to a group of guys, ‘Hey, what are you doing here?'” Unsurprisingly his comments were met with criticism such as from James O. Pasco Jr., executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police.
Speaking to the New York Times in a phone interview, Pasco said, “He ought to stick to what he knows. He’s basically saying that police officers are afraid to do their jobs with absolutely no proof.”