Last weekend at the Maker Faire in Queens, not far from where the Word's Fair took place in 1964, attendees were treated to a massive showcase of emerging tech products, from 3D printing booths to an actual drone racing course. Amidst the geekery, something strange happened: a fully uniformed NYPD officer performed an impromptu scratch routine on a pair of turntables while a crowd of onlookers videotaped the whole routine of their phones, some footage of which ended up on Reddit today.Though ostensibly a legal right of citizens, filming uniformed police officers has occasionally had disastrous consequences, including, but not limited to, reprimands from law enforcement officers, confiscation of private property, and unlawful arrests. Some activists have even speculated that the recent sentencing of Ramsey Orta—the man who filmed the death of Eric Garner at the hands of the NYPD—to four years in prison for drugs and weapons charges was potentially motivated by his decision to capture video of that tragic incident.Unlike those cases though, the as-yet-unidentified officer didn't really seem to mind having a handful of cameras trained on him. At the end, an MC who was off-screen can even be heard saying on the mic: "That's going all over the internet—we need more of those videos." When he finally finished up his routine after about 90 seconds, the officer quickly disappeared out of frame and can be seen talking to the people in the crowd and checking out of the videos they caught of him scratching. Check it out above.
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