This didn't happen in NYC, but during Occupy a coworker of mine was biking home after work in Oakland and cops clothes-lined him off his bike, zip tied him, tossed him in a van and took him a whole county over

Dude just had a black hoodie on and was only guilty of living in the general vicinity of Occupy Oakland and apparently that was all it took

He missed the next day of work and had to call in from jail

Cops lie all the time. They arrest people without probable cause. All. The. Time. They can't be trusted, and they absolutely will do whatever it takes to spin things in their favor and most media outlets generally go along with it

People in this subreddit will often act otherwise, but during the BLM protests the cops were putting out overwhelming shows of force for every little tiny demonstration, while simultaneously looking the other way when looters were hitting up 5th ave. They absolutely had the manpower to prevent opportunistic looting like that, they just choose not to because they know damn well who will get blamed for it. Whether crime goes up or down doesn't matter, they spin it to their benefit either way

All cops care about is maintaining and growing their own power, that's it. They don't care about helping you, or preventing crime, or keeping the city safe at all. As far as they're concerned, you're all sheep, civilians, potential perps, and anything they do to you is justified just because, occasionally, they actually arrest someone who deserved it

I'm personally convinced the overwhelming and unaccountable power local police has accumulated in the US is a direct threat to democracy, but here we are still shoveling billions their way while everything else crumbles