A few days ago Lucy Kafanov tweeted a pic of an hipster-looking NYPD officer she saw at the Occupy Wall Street protests in downtown Manhattan. Little did she know that by tweeting a pic of the “Hipster Cop” she’d be advancing an internet urban legend of sorts almost on par with Bigfoot and the Abominable Snowman. Sightings of the fashionable officer had been popping up all over the web and have continued ever since, like this one by Adrian Chen on Tumblr, who said he met him on the day Radiohead was rumored to be playing a show for the protesters.

When I met him, Hipster Cop was wearing a bright red Mister Rogers cardigan and a white button down with a clipped tie, grey wool slacks and spotless oxfords, a smirk on his face. He was the most sharply-dressed guy I had seen pretty much all week, and I work in Soho. Hipster Cop almost looked too well-dressed to be a Radiohead fan; like, maybe he only listened to LPs of obscure Japanese bands from the 80s. But I asked if he was bummed about Radiohead’s no-show: “They’re finished,” he joked. “Nobody’s going to listen to their music anymore.”

But he was a cop! Which I learned when he flashed a badge hooked discreetly onto his belt and shooed away the uniformed officer who eventually came over to move us from the street where we were chatting onto the sidewalk. You could tell she was embarrassed; guess he’s like that cool detective at the police station that nobody wants to talk to about movies or music or anything ‘cause he’ll scoff at them.

Today we learned more about Hipster Cop: he’s NYPD Community Affairs Detective Rick Lee, a 20-year veteran of the force who only eats organic food and lives in Brooklyn. And now he’s a meme!

Let’s be real — this was inevitable. I made a few of the slides that are after the jump — others come via Quickmeme. Enjoy!

