This is... what it is! Staten Island police drove out onto a basketball court Friday night in the middle of a slam dunk tournament, stopping their squad car directly under the hoop. The Staten Island Advance reports that "players and spectators feared police had arrived to break up the game," but the officers were actually there to participate, resulting in this automatically viral video footage:
Organizers from the Under the Lights basketball league, which holds the event every year, say they approached officers before the tournament and asked them if they'd let one of the players dunk over their patrol car. After checking with their commanding officer in the 122nd Precinct, the cops were given approval. Positive community outreach in the wake of Eric Garner's death or masterful stroke of social media propaganda? Maybe the two things aren't even mutually exclusive...
The Advance reports that the player, Brian Hogan-Gary, 20, "pulled off his jersey to reveal a shirt that had 'R.I.P Eric Garner' written on the front. He teed up for the shot, and proceeded to launch himself over the cop car, completely clearing it and slamming home the dunk. Cops blared their lights and sirens on cue from Soto, and the crowd went nuts."
After nailing the dunk, Hogan-Gary jumps up onto the hood of the cop car as the lights flash and the crowd goes wild and nobody gets put into a fatal chokehold by police. Hogan-Gary won that round of the tournament, while league founder Joe Soto won the Understatement Round, telling the Advance."The cops were really great and nice about it—it was a little bit surreal.
