October 21, 2014
Viral NYPD Racial Profiling Video Was Staged
Video purports to show Muslim men being targeted by patrolman
OCTOBER 21--In a cynical and duplicitous attempt to capitalize on New York City’s documented racial profiling problems, a pair of bloggers have created a video purporting to show an NYPD officer stopping and frisking a pair of Muslim men for the crime of wearing traditional Islamic garments.
But the viral video is a sham, a staged production aimed to go viral and pile up views and YouTube channel subscriptions for its young creators, Brooklynites Adam Saleh and Sheikh Akbar, who get a piece of the revenue generated by ads that run before their videos play.
The duo’s video operation--which is named “TrueStoryASA”--has racked up 60 million YouTube views and has more than 661,000 subscribers on the video-sharing site. While most of the pair’s videos involve pranks, sidewalk attempts at comedy and social commentary, or “Muslim-related stuff,” their latest clip seeks to latch onto an issue that has troubled many New Yorkers and tainted the NYPD.
Titled “Racial Profiling Experiment,” the 2:53 video (seen above) was uploaded Sunday to YouTube, where it has already been viewed in excess of 135,000 times. The clip has received coverage in several publications, including the British newspaper The Independent and The Huffington Post.
