Source: (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) / Getty
An Instagram clip has garnered some attention for showing two teens attempt at outsmarting the cops.
According to New York Daily News, the clip was posted on Thursday night and took place in the Bronx. A young woman can be heard screaming and cheering as she circles an NYPD SUV. Eventually, she pulls open the side rear door and another girl dashes out with her hands cuffed behind her back.
Cops say the runaway incident took place on Wednesday, near the corner of E, 149th Street and Southern Boulevard. The cops were responding to a report of an assault and had handcuffed the runaway suspect and a friend, both 14, before the teen in the video came through and opened the police car’s door.
As the handcuffed suspect ran, a few police officers followed while her friend yelled, “Yeah! Yeah! You got it! You got it! Run! Run! My sister out!”
The police recaptured the freed suspect about a half-block away. Meanwhile, the 15-year-old girl who freed her friend was also arrested on charges of obstructing government administration.
Authorities didn’t release any of the teenage girls’ names due to their age.
Public opinion of the NYPD continues to waver, especially considering their approach to handing teenagers and petty crimes. Just last month, a clip was released to social media showing NYPD officers punching a group of mostly Black teenagers in a Brooklyn subway station. One of the teens arrested, a 15-year-old, was charged with resisting arrest, assault on a police officer, and disorderly conduct. A 16-year-old girl was also charged with a reckless endangerment charge, and three 18-year-olds were charged with resisting arrest. It was unclear how any of these charges led to punches being thrown at teenagers.
NYPD and Gov. Andrew Cuomo have also faced recent criticism for their crackdown on fare evasion. They’ve already deployed 500 cops to subway stations around the city, something that activists say harkens back to New York’s Broken Windows policing that encouraged the unconstitutional procedure of Stop and Frisk, which helped encourage the mass criminalization of nonviolent Black and brown people. With such over-policing and additional outrage over the city’s mishandling of the death of Eric Garner, anti-police sentiments continue to be a topic of discussion in New York City.
