Police Departments Are Making Their Own "Cops" Videos Counteracting Police Brutality Depicted On Soc

[Nevilledog]

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emaoconnor/youtube-police-departments

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This video, which was uploaded in July 2020 and has more than 87,000 views, is one of hundreds the Miami Police Department has put out since it started vlogging in 2015 (the most popular has 3.4 million views). Miami is just an early adopter of a renewed tactic. Now, police departments across the nation are producing slick videos, pushing a “good cop” image after years of outrage over shootings, many captured on video and published to social media, and the resulting protests demanding accountability. The New York Police Department has posted over 800 videos to its channel, including web series called Beyond the Badge and Neighborhood Policing. The Los Angeles Police Department regularly posts bodycam and security footage, sometimes cutting it together with a moving score, like this video of an officer providing first aid to a man injured during riots after an LA Lakers championship game.

The videos continue the tradition, popularized by shows like Cops and Live PD, of glorifying police work via highly edited, suspenseful, “documentary”-style entertainment. But these are coming from the departments themselves, with police employees editing and uploading the clips right to YouTube. A new form of “copaganda,” as activists refer to it. There has been a boom in these shows and channels over the past 19 months, after both Cops and Live PD — criticized for years for glorifying police work and perpetuating racial stereotypes — were canceled amid the summer 2020 protests. (Cops is now making a return on Fox Nation.)

Current and former spokespeople for five different police departments said these videos help with “public education,” “community outreach,” recruiting, and morale.

But most critically some officials say they are made to counteract the dominant online presence of the police accountability and reform movements of the past eight years.

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Video referred to in article