Bully Bad Cops In New York Assault Dancing Prankster Because They Can

Prankster is caught dancing near cops. Cops are
not amused, so they assault him. And will
probably get away with it.  

The other day I complained about some of New York's finest really overreacting to protesters calling for reforms in some police practices.

After all, since they are part of government, and this is democracy, they shouldn't be immune from criticism, like some of the spokes people of the police unions seem to think.

Some cops, a minority of them to be sure, are so arrogant they think they are above everything.

The latest example: A prankster named Alexander Bok took up a challenge by comedian and talk show host Ellen Degeneres to dance behind unsuspecting people to see what their reaction is when they discovered what was going on.

Bok did this behind a couple of New York City police officers and the cops got all abusive. Calling him names, and trying to come up with things to arrest Bok for, even though he didn't do anything illegal.

Eventually, six police officers accumulated around Bok. Like we need six police officers to yell at a guy for dancing near them? What a terrible threat a goofy dancer is!

Frustrated they couldn't arrest him they tell him to take "a fucking walk" then shove Bok to the ground. That's assault. But cops, at least some of them in New York, and probably elsewhere, think they are above the law.

They're goons, plain and simple.

Look, I get it. Cops have a difficult, dangerous job. And a few asshats, people much worse than the cops in Bok's video, seem to think hurting or killing cops is the solution to reports of police abuse.

And the cops in New York are understandably on edge because of that jerk that ambushed and killed two of them earlier this month.  I can see why they wanted to make sure Bok was not a threat. Asking him what he was doing is OK.

But you'd think, once the cops realized Bok was just goofing, to let it go and get on with their jobs.

The cops in the video are totally not helping their cause if they think they can convince us we shouldn't criticize them.  Bullying only increases resentment. Don't they train you to de-escalate tension whenever possible so somebody doesn't get hurt? Including the police?

If they keep this up, maybe people will start to be afraid to call the cops when there's trouble. Or is that what they want, somehow?

Some people in the comments section of the YouTube video said Bok shouldn't have danced near the cops, because he should have known they might turn into assholes.

But that's the point. The cops are not above the law. So I'm glad Bok did this and somebody got it on film. I'm glad the video is going viral. I bet, or at least Ellen Degeneres features it on her show pretty soon.

The more people know about the bad cops out there among the good ones, the more likely the scummy cops can get weeded out and the good ones can go about their work.

If there's more to this video in which Bok threatened or assaulted the cops and that was edited out the video, I'll update this. But I don't think Bok did that.

Here's the video, in which people react well enough to his dancing, until he encounters the jerky cops.