Twitter Campaign Backfires For New York Police

A request by New York Police for the public to share pictures of them posing with officers didn't go as planned after pictures of police 'brutality' were tweeted instead.

In an attempt to "communicate with the community", the city's police department said in a Tweet : "Do you have a photo w/ a member of the NYPD? Tweet us & tag it #myNYPD. It may be featured on our Facebook."

Although some respondents did publish police-friendly pictures, many tweeted images of people being violently arrested, a number of which were from the city's 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests.

Responding to the request, Oakland Anti-Social Media tweeted: "You really want this huh? Because I can google a grip of your pigs in the middle of assaulting people ..."

Some of the pictures posted included images of a woman having her hair pulled as she is arrested and a front page from the New York Post showing a bloodied man reportedly arrested for crossing the road in the wrong place.

Not all the pictures tweeted could be verified by Sky News.

NYPD Deputy Chief Kim Royster said in a statement to the New York Times that her department was "creating new ways to communicate effectively with the community" and that the uncensored dialogue had been "good for the city".