Putting the Literal Prop in Police Propaganda

Plus, a beekeeper saves baseball!

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Hello readers, Parker here.

Yesterday, as I am loath wont to do, I was watching MSNBC’s Morning Joe, when I caught a segment featuring New York Police Department Deputy Commissioner Tarik Sheppard discussing the department’s Tuesday night arrests of protesters on Columbia University’s campus. At one point, Sheppard pulls out a bike lock and a roughly three foot chain and says the following, presenting it as evidence of “profressional” involvement in the protest movement.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI, CO-HOST, MORNING JOE: Tell us about this chain.

DEP. COMMISSIONER TARIK SHEPPARD, NYPD: Yeah, so when we were entering Hamilton Hall, this is not what students bring to school.

BRZEZINSK: Don’t think so.

SHEPPARD: This is what professionals bring to campuses and universities. These are heavy industrial chains that were locked with bike locks. And this is what we encountered on every door inside of Hamilton Hall. And so in order for our emergency services group to enter into the building, they had to first cut through these chains, but also get rid of debris and barricaded doors that were barricaded with refrigerators, vending machines, chairs, you name it, they pushed it up against those doors to try and stop us from coming in. But our guys would not be stopped. They did a fantastic job of entering into that location and taking people into custody without incident last night. They took about forty to fifty people into custody inside of the lobby of Hamilton Hall last night.

Setting aside just… everything else just going on — the protests, the arrests, the war, the local, national, and international politics of it all — I was just not prepared to see NYPD attempt to use the presence of bike locks and chains as evidence of “professionals” — which… again, what is even being said here? Professional whats?