If you search #myNYPD on Twitter you will see a barrage of images of police brutality, which is not what New York's finest wanted when they launched the hashtag as a way of people promoting positive encounters with the public.
The NYPD put out this tweet on Tuesday, which suggested the type of image and themes they were after - nice pictures of people posing with their officers.
But the majority of responses, of which the below is fairly representative, were less pro-police.
The barrage began almost immediately after the force's official Twitter account posted the request. Others tweeted about the scale of police shootings, police brutality and officers apparently shooting a dog.
Since 9/11 more Americans have been killed by the police than Americans killed by Iraqi insurgents pic.twitter.com/nVW6kTlSgI#MyNYPD
— Occupy Wall Street (@OccupyWallStNYC) April 23, 2014
This one did not depict brutality as such. If it's real, we're impressed.
An NYPD spokeswoman told The New York Times that the department was “creating new ways to communicate effectively with the community” and that Twitter provided “an open forum for an uncensored exchange” that is “good for our city”.
Undeterred by the gathering PR disaster around #myNYPD, the NYPD's Twitter account valiantly tweeted back to people who sent them images they liked.
New NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton, who was a potential candidate to take over London's Metropolitan Police until he was given the New York job, has his own Twitter account that tends to tweet good news and links to articles about developments in policing. It has not tweeted since August last year.