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Rosella Best spray-painted “NAZIS = NYPD”and instead of being charged with vandalism, the NYPD arrested her for a hate crime.

The NYPD has now added its name to the roster of Officially Protected Victims by filing “hate crimes” charges against 36-year-old Rosella Best, who had tagged police vehicles and a public school with anti-NYPD graffiti. Among the entirely defensible sentiments inscribed by Best are “NYPD pick on the harmless,” “NYPD pick on the innocent,” and — in a display of familiar but increasingly justified hyperbole — “NAZIS=NYPD.” (Assuming that Ms. Best used only “public” property as her canvas, it’s difficult to identify an actual victim in this case.)

Like other agencies of its kind, the NYPD is well-stocked with the kind of privileged bullies who have mastered the art of simultaneously swaggering and simpering. Thus anonymous sources described the graffiti to the New York Post as “a disturbing hate crime.” After Best was identified through video surveillance, the department arrested her and charged her with “criminal mischief as a hate crime.”

Under Article 485 of New York Penal Law, a “hate crime” must involve “violence, intimidation [or] destruction of property” inspired by animus toward people on the basis of “race, color, national origin, ancestry. gender, religion, religious practice, age, disability, or sexual orientation.” Absent from that inventory is any mention of occupation as a “protected category,” which means that the NYPD must consider itself to be either a tribe, a cult, or perhaps even a sexual orientation, most likely one that fetishizes sadistic mistreatment of the helpless.

The statute also specifies that the offending act must be intended to “inflict on victims incalculable physical and emotional damage” and be intended to “intimidate and disrupt entire communities….” By filing a hate crimes charge against Ms. Best, the NYPD is certifying that its rank and file consists of people who are wounded and intimidated by public criticism. If the bold and valiant badasses of the NYPD must be protected from words, they’re obviously ill-suited to protect the public, as if that noble calling were part of their actual job description.

An addendum:

“I think you made a mistake,” comments LRC reader Jose Roberto Blum. “NYPD officers are no tribe or cult, but they do have a disability. Or isn’t `lacking a basic moral sense’ or, more simply, psychopathy, a disability?”

The answer to that question is situational: In seeking “specially protected” status, psychopathy would be a disability; for purposes of recruitment, it would be a prerequisite. By way of contrast, a higher-than-average IQ, or a functioning conscience, would be regarded as a liability.

The Best of William Norman Grigg

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