Dancing cop vs. abusive cop: One defused a defiant teen. The other got fired.
In Washington, police showed up in a neighborhood near the Nationals baseball stadium to break up a fight between two groups of teens. After it was over,
17-year-old Aaliyah Taylor, a senior at Ballou High School, walked up to the officer and started playing “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)” on her phone. Instead of clearing out, as the police officer had demanded that she and the rest of the crowd do, she started dancing the Nae Nae. You could totally see a teen doing this, right?
That officer had a choice. Yell at the teen for being defiant and disrespectful? Go rogue and slam the teen to the ground, South Carolina-style?
Nope. Instead, the officer began dancing, too, matching Aaliyah move for move. It was a hilarious, uplifting and refreshing 56 seconds of video that immediately went viral.
It shouldn’t be news that a police officer used her humanity to defuse a tense situation instead of escalating it, that a white cop didn’t use force against a black teen. But for many people in Aaliyah’s community, it was.
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[From Chocolate City to Latte City: Being black in the new D.C.]
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“Instead of us fighting, she tried to turn it around and make it something fun,” Aaliyah said. “I never expected cops to be that cool. There are some good cops.”
Yes, Aaliyah, there are some good cops.
The police officer, who has been on the force for about three years and recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq, told The Post she was embarrassed that her take on community policing had gotten so much attention.
“This is what we do every day,” she said.
D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier later reinforced that, issuing a statement calling the dance-off one “of the many positive police-community interactions that take place daily in Washington, D.C.”
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But it’s also true that Bad Cops — and the long-standing refusal of many departments and prosecutors to hold them accountable for their actions — ruin the reputation, hard work and personal sacrifice of the tens of thousands of Good Cops.
she is so awesome!
