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Spike Lee received $219,000 to produce ads for NYPD

August 17, 2018 By Raanan Geberer Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
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NYPD recently gave filmmaker Spike Lee’s production company $219,113 in consulting fees to help produce ads for the de Blasio administration’s community policing initiative.

“The NYPD came to me knowing I have been critical of them,” Lee told the Wall Street Journal. “I think it’s important for open dialogue to make what has been a tough relationship better.”

NYPD First Deputy Commissioner Benjamin Tucker said he considered Lee precisely because, “You want to reach out to folks. Not just the folks who are supporters pretty consistently, but also folks who have certainly been critics in the past.”

The fee paid to Lee’s company came from the New York City Police Foundation, a nonprofit that some say acts like an unofficial arm of the NYPD, according to Gothamist. Lee’s ads ran earlier this year.

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