Cops Caught on Tape Harassing Minorities: ‘You Weaken the F*cking Country!’

Recent video of Philadelphia police officers verbally harassing a couple of minority pedestrians went viral over the weekend, drawing attention once again to the controversial tactics of “stop and frisk” as well as questions about racial profiling and police abuse.

The video, dated Sept. 27, was recently posted to YouTube by one of the frisked pedestrians. After an officer calls out “Yo, my man,” from inside the cruiser, things quickly go downhill. The two officers allege that the two pedestrians said hi to a stranger, and in that particular neighborhood of Philadelphia, “you don’t just say ‘hi’ to strangers.”

Officers exit their vehicle and begin frisking the two men, calling one a “fucking dirty ass.” The men complain that they’ve done nothing wrong, prompting an officer to shout: “Why don’t you shut the fuck up? Everyone thinks they’re a fucking lawyer and they don’t know jack shit.”

Later on, Officer Philip Nace told the two men: “Don’t come to fucking Philadelphia, stay in Jersey.”

“I have family out here,” responded one of the unidentified men.

“We don’t want you here, anyway,” the officer responded. “All you do is weaken the fucking country.”

“How do I weaken the country? By working?” the man asksed

“No, freeloading,” Nace replied.

As it turns out, one of the men said he works as a server at a local country club, prompting this reply from Nace: “Server. Serving weed?”

According to the Philadelphia Daily News, Lt. John Stanford, a police spokesman, said an “active investigation” is underway by Internal Affairs. He said the investigation, not the video, would determine whether the officers “acted appropriate in all aspects of their job.”

Watch the video below (NSFW — Contains strong language):

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