Why did Twitter Remove Portland Police Video, “Support from Community”?

Less than 24 hours after the publication of this article, PPB removed the video… because of copyright infringement:

The video is now, sadly, lost to history. But the analysis remains.

During this time of COVID-19 social distancing, it’s easier than ever to become fixated on bits of the world as viewed through a screen. Take, for example, my mild obsession with this video the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) tweeted out on Thursday, titled “Portland police get support, encouragement from community.” – Blair Stenvick

The video has over 165,000 views, and at least 20 of those views are from me. I’ve watched it so many times that I got the soundtrack—a sparse, probably internet-sourced acoustic track that feels more like an “Error: Inspiration Not Found” message that an inspirational score—stuck in my head over the weekend.

It’s such a stunningly pathetic, finished-in-the-class-period-before-it-was-due attempt at propaganda that I had to study it frame-by-frame, if only to get it out of my mind. Let us consider it together.

The video opens with this kindergarten Thanksgiving hand turkey experiment gone wrong:

Message-wise, this image is important mostly because it establishes a theme that will be returned to several times in the 2:25 runtime of this off-brand Powerpoint presentation. That theme is one of religious righteousness, particularly that of the American Christian variety, which casts PPB officers as the hand-picked warriors of Jesus Christ (a man who was, we should note, killed by cops).