New Documents Confirm NYPD Use of Inflammatory and Inaccurate Video on Islam in the U.S.

Today’s New York Times reports on recent NYPD documents obtained by NYU Brennan Center after an extend legal battle. The documents confirm that, as part of Department anti-terrorism training, 68 lieutenants, 159 sergeants, 31 detectives and 1,231 patrol officers had been shown the film, The Third Jihad, which presents an inflammatory and distorted view of Islam and American Muslims. Funded by the Clarion Fund, the film begins with this opening sequence in the Times’ description:

Ominous music plays as images appear on the screen: Muslim terrorists shoot Christians in the head, car bombs explode, executed children lie covered by sheets and a doctored photograph shows an Islamic flag flying over the White House.

This is the true agenda of much of Islam in America,” a narrator intones. “A strategy to infiltrate and dominate America. ... This is the war you don’t know about.”

Despite acknowledging the seriously flawed character of the film and subsequently discontinuing its use, the NYPD has, according to a spokesperson contacted by the Times, no plans to offer those shown the film follow-up training to correct misunderstandings and biases it could have stoked.    

JFB