Violent Threats Online and Police Inaptitude

For women* experiencing online abuse, a further cause of frustration is the inability (or disinterest) of police to do anything about it. As writer Anna Merlan detail in theis great piece for Jezebel, it’s not necessarily because it is impossible to act against harassers online, but because (local) police do not care/are not skilled enough. She describes her own experience of online harassment and offline police disinterest, and points out that police, in her case the NYP, can act swiftly against online harassers, if it’s against someone the police cares about:

Local police are likewise able to move quickly when motivated: One of the men arrested for threatening NYPD officers was 26-year-old Jose Maldonado, who according to ABC news had posted “Might just go out and kill two cops myself!!!” on his Facebook, along with pictures of the slain officers and photos of a TEC- 9 and a MAC-10. He was contacted by police that day and surrendered at the precinct that evening. In a statement at the time, the NYPD said they’d received about 40 threats and determined about half weren’t credible, adding, “All threats against members of the NYPD are taken seriously and are investigated immediately to determine the credibility and origin of the information.”

Last week, the NYPD made yet another quick arrest, of a 17-year-old boy named Osiris Aristy. They accused him of making terroristic threats against the police by posting gun emojis pointing at cop emojis, along with statements that reportedly included “”N***a run up on me, he gunna get blown down,” and “Fuck the 83 104 79 98 73 PctKKKK.” Here, the ambiguity of online communication was not a problem.