After the viral Benadryl trend on TikTok claimed the life of a boy from the United State’s Ohio, a similar challenge left a 16-year-old boy with third degree burns. A TikTok challenge went horribly wrong when a group of teens in North Carolina tried to create a makeshift torch using a spray paint can and a lighter, The New York Post reported.

The TikTok challenge triggered an explosion and left the 16-year-old boy, Mason Dark, severely disfigured with burns covering nearly 80% of his body, the report said. His mother, Holli Dark, said her son is now unrecognisable.

Mason Dark and his friends from Wake Forest were trying the trend when the can of spray paint he was holding exploded with a huge bang, consuming him in flames.

Attempting to soothe the burns in a nearby river only made his condition worse. He emerged with charred skin. The teenager suffered a T-shaped third-degree burn on his back from ripping off the flaming shirt, and is at high risk of infection from the river water.

He was immediately taken to the hospital where he remains in the UNC Burn Center and is expected to be there for at least six months. On April 26, Mason went into surgery to get skin grafts to start the long healing process.

Mason was rushed to the UNC Burn Center with burns covering 76% of his body, his mother told the New York Post.

He has already undergone several surgeries to receive skin grafts. His mother said the process is slow, but they are hopeful that his skin will heal over time.

The boy’s grandmother also set up a GoFundMe page on his behalf.

A note by his mother reads, ”My son Mason, needs your prayers. 75% of his body is burned. The accident occurred on the afternoon of Sunday, April 23, 2023.

He jumped into a river to extinguish the flames. The risk of infection from the river water is high, on top of having 2nd and 3rd-degree burns. We are thankful to be at the UNC Burn Center in Chapel Hill.

It is one of the top in the nation. Mason has a long road ahead of him. Please pray for his recovery. He is in an incredible amount of pain and is sedated.” source

“The arrogance is disgusting”: Federal Way police officer Breanna Straus suspended for viral TikTok, internet left unconvinced

TikTok user and police officer Breanna Straus has left netizens disappointed in the police after speaking about her privileges.

In a video, Strauss was seen reminding viewers that she can speed without getting in trouble. She also said that officers can “find a reason” to pull drivers over if they stay in front of them long enough.

The video has led to a lengthy debate about police officers’ entitlement with people taking to Twitter to call her out. One Twitter user even said, “The arrogance is disgusting,” a sentiment that was echoed by a lot of other users.

~Pro Choice Bekka~

@LookItzBeka

@Imposter_Edits The arrogance is disgusting. What a way to encourage faith in law enforcement. Sad.

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Breanna Straus works with the Federal Way Police Department in Washington State. In the now viral video, she told viewers that the police are above and beyond the law and do not have the same rules as the citizens. This has led netizens to believe that Straus was abusing her power after she became an authoritarian figure.

The video, which has garnered massive traction on social media, has since been deleted from Breanna Straus’ profile. However, netizens were quick to screen record the video. One of these people was Reddit user u/Jaamac2025, who circulated it across social media platforms.

The video found its way to Twitter as well, where it amassed over 3.5 million views and more than 52.7k likes. The tweet read:

“I mean she just said it, the laws don’t apply to them, and they will “find a reason” to pull you over id they want to.”

Breanna Straus said in the video:

“If we’re driving on the freeway in our police car, get the f**k out of our way. Get the f**k out of the way. If you merge and we follow behind you and we merge too, you’re probably in trouble. Best way to find that out is to get the f**k out of the way. I can go 90 miles an hour, you can’t. You can’t do that. So get the f**k out of the way. If us officers stay behind you long enough we can find a reason to pull you over so you might as well get the f**k out of the way.”

_Imposter_

@Imposter_Edits

I mean she just said it, the laws don’t apply to them, and they will “find a reason” to pull you over if they want to.

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Netizens react to Breanna Straus’ TikTok video

As mentioned earlier, netizens were not pleased to hear the officer’s “PSA” and many were disgusted by her tone and autarchic demeanor. Several internet reasons stated that her behavior of looking “untouchable” was a reason why they did not believe in the police system.

Additionally, when people learnt of Straus’ suspension of only 10 hours, they were left furious. Many called for the officer to be fired instead of being suspended for such a short duration of time.

What happened to Breanna Straus?

The infamous officer was sworn into the force in August 9, 2021. The Federal Way Police Department conducted an investigation into the video and looked into possible violations of standards. They also looked into the officer’s previous disciplinary issues.

Cmdr. Kurt Schwan from Federal Way told Seattle Weekly that the police officer did not have previous disciplinary issues. They went on to determine that Straus broke the department’s Code of Conduct when it came to their social media and personal conduct.

Dirty Cops Bad Cops – Police Caught BUSTED! Cop Owned

funny cops not being funny!

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JuD_vBlyHpY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Neb787h2FI

https://youtu.be/AeF927yUyTA

Police Pig

Pig” is one of the many common slang terms for police officers. Since pigs are generally viewed as being foul and unpleasant creatures, and comparing pigs to humans is almost always done unfavorably in an offensive way, it’s frequently used as a very derogatory insult by people who don’t really like the police for various reasons.

“Pig” is especially reserved for cops who are regarded as being idiotic or incompetent, corrupt crooks, and violently (or even homicidally) aggressive towards other people. These negative stereotypes of the police also strongly parallel boorish behaviors commonly associated with pigs; such as greed and gluttony (which fits well with the common joke of donut-munching cops), leaving behind big messes for others to clean up, and generally being quite stubborn and ill-tempered (pigs can be very aggressive when it comes to securing food and territory, or when reacting to other perceived threats and provocations).

For this reason, fiction often uses “pig/cop” as a Literal Metaphor or Visual Pun, and portrays police officers as anthropomorphic pigs. In more realistic works, cops may instead have pigs as an Animal Motif or may have some vaguely pig-like traits. However, this isn’t always used in a negative way; in some stories (such as those set in a World of Funny Animals), a policeman may be a pig solely as a Stealth Pun. That being said, Stealth Pun examples are more likely to be seen as more neutral as opposed to outright heroic due to the negative context. However, this trope is not about simply calling the police “pigs”; the association must be strong within the work itself or at least prominently drawn attention to at some point.

This trope is Older Than They Think. The first known usage of “pig” to refer to a police officer was recorded in 1811. The 1972 animated film Fritz the Cat portrayed the cops as pigs (pictured on the top right), which helped to give the term a big comeback in modern times. This term is not exclusive to the English language either; the association of pigs with police carries over to other languages as well. Just for one example, the Finnish word sika (“pig”) is also used as an insult to the police. 

Existing tropes about pigs can also easily be combined with tropes about police. When The Bad Guys Are Cops, this trope will be naturally combined with Sinister Swine. Anthropomorphic pigs also have a tendency to be portrayed as (racist and/or sexist) Politically Incorrect Villains, so Bigot with a Badge naturally compliments that. As mentioned above, expect to see Donut Mess with a Cop mixed with Gluttonous Pig. There’s also a fair amount of overlap possible with Messy Pig or Perverted Pig. However, police pigs are rather unlikely to be Brainy Pigs, instead playing up the stereotype of being stubbornly (and literally) “pigheaded” to comically dimwitted extremes.

Also see Detective Animal, if the pig-cop is played as being more of an observant investigator. For other Animal Occupation Stereotypes (although these usually have much more neutral or even positive connotations), see Firehouse Dalmatian, Boxing Kangaroo, Fighting Panda, Mole Miner, Semiaquatic Species Sailor, and Busy Beaver. Also compare Foxy Vixen for another trope about animals being used as a Visual Pun regarding their name.

No Real Life Examples, Please! Since this trope is about a derogatory term, real-life examples (especially in the context of police-related controversies, or political activism in reaction to it) would only attract controversy.

   Comic Strips

• Pearls Before Swine: Mentioned in one strip, where Rat loses Pig at a protest and shouts “Pig! Come here, Pig!” while trying to find him. He accidentally attracts the attention of an irritated police officer in the process.

    Fan Works

• The Air Watch, in the Discworld, is made up of Witches with a passion for flight who provide Sam Vimes with an aerial dimension. Aware of the derogatory nickname, the Air Witches have claimed N-Word Privileges for themselves and their unit badge depicts a pig in a pointy hat astride a broomstick. Of course, any civilian referring to Flying Pigs might still get a taster of Watch brutality. Read more in the works of A.A. Pessimal.

    Films — Animated

• Fritz the Cat portrays police officers (pictured on the top-right) as corrupt, incompetetent, anthropomorphic pigs. As noted earlier on the page, the film was a major reason for the usage of “pig” as an insult for cops making a big comeback in The ’70s.
• Hoodwinked!: There are three policeman pigs who appear a few times in the movie, and they are shown to be quite gluttonous.
• Sing: Serves as a double Stealth Pun. When Marcus breaks out of jail to see Johnny perform in the ruins of the Moon Theater, one of the cops searching for him is a pig flying aboard a helicopter.
• Zootopia: A Stealth Pun example. At the end of the film, when Dawn Bellwether is in prison, a pig policewoman/guard can be seen watching the prisoners.

    Films — Live-Action

• Discussed and Played for Laughs in Dr. Dolittle, where a group of animals block the path to the building where the titular character is performing a life-saving operation on a circus tiger, which he kidnapped. The animals respond by chanting “Pigs, go home!” Actual pigs were among the animals, and assume they actually wanted them to go home until Lucky said they weren’t speaking about them.
• Spiral (2021): As a Visual Pun in regards to their MO (specifically, targeting corrupt cops), the Spiral Killer has a police pig puppet named “Mr. Snuggles.”

    Literature

• Animal Farm: Played with. The pigs aren’t necessarily police but are still in high positions of authority, and turn the farm into an oppressive dictatorship, using Angry Guard Dogs to enforce their Reign of Terror. The Acceptable Targets part of this trope is played straight, in that the pigs were meant to represent tyrannical despots such as Josef Stalin, who ran the Soviet Union as a totalitarian Police State.
• Filth: The book’s cover depicts a pig in a police hat, and the book itself is about a Corrupt Cop undergoing Sanity Slippage.
• The Stand: Randall Flagg, the demonic protagonist of the book, is described as wearing a denim jacket with several buttons pinned to it. One of them depicts a dead pig wearing a policeman’s cap. “How’s Your Pork?” is written along the bottom of the button.
• In Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, the policemen are pigs. This raised controversy and resulted in the book being banned in some schools and libraries.

    Live-Action TV

• Shakespeare Re-Told: Discussed. In the show’s version of the original play’s infamous Prophecy Twist, Macbeth is told he will be killed “when pigs fly”. His downfall at the episode’s climax involves the Police Helicopter Squad.
• Grimm features a were-pig arson investigator. There’s also one who’s a chef, but that’s another trope altogether.

    Puppet Shows

• The Muppets:
  • In the “Bear on Patrol” sketches on The Muppet Show, Officer Fozzie’s superior is Link Hogthrob.
  • In The Muppet Movie, when Dr Teeth is running through a variety of slang terms for the police, he gets as far as spelling “The P.I…” before Miss Piggy tells him not to finish that sentence.

    Video Games

• Pikelet from Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is a Pig Man and the chief of the Showdown Town Police Force. While he doesn’t even pretend to not be looking forward to beat the bear and bird duo if they even think of breaking one of his highly arbitrary rules, he isn’t above letting them go if they are willing to grease his hooves a bit. Notes make the world go around, after all.
• In Disco Elysium, “pig” is a common insult used against cops in Revachol, and since many residents of the Martinaise district lack respect for the RCM, it gets thrown at the Detective and Kim a lot. Also referencing this trope is a woman who calls herself “The Pigs”, who has a large collection of police paraphernalia and speaks almost entirely in nonsensical copspeak. When you meet her, Kim wryly notes how refreshing it is that someone else is being called a “pig” for once.
• In the Duke Nukem series, one of Duke’s most typical enemies are the Pig Cops, who are LAPD officers that were mutated into monstrous Pig Men by the evil aliens.
• Mother 3: The main villains are the Pigmasks, a paramilitary organization whose members wear pig-faced masks and helmets, and whose leader is Porky Minch (himself likened to a pig) turned Dragon Ascendant.
• Police Quest: Many antagonistic characters throughout the series call Sonny Bonds or the Lytton police in general pigs. Tawnee V. Helmut in the first game’s remake even mocks the protagonist with several things associated with pigs (a sty, rolling in mud, and oinking) after receiving a ticket. Conversely, in the fourth game only Yo Money references those animals, calling Dennis Walker “a boil on a pig’s butt”, which is not meant to disparage the new protagonist John Carey and he immediately apologizes for any potential insult from that line.
• The fan-made Pokémon parody Pokémon Clover has Piguson, a pig-like Pokémon who dresses up as a police officer. It also chases after Vandash (a Pokémon based on Black stereotypes) in a jab at the bias against black people from the police, and its name references the Ferguson riots, which began after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer.

    Web Animation

• Helluva Boss tends to depict the police as being incompetent, violent, or both. In the episode “Spring Broken“, Verosika Mayday and her crew (who are Succubi and Incubi demons) realized that they need to “suck a lot of pig dick” to bribe their way out of being arrested, much to their disgust.

    Web Original

• The SCP Foundation knows of at least two distinct anomalies which both invoke this trope, albeit in very different ways:
  • SCP-4670 is a Greek-American witch named Cici Heliou, who has the ability to transform humans into pigs (basically a modernized version of Circe from The Odyssey). Cici is also a militant socialist with a murderous hatred for police, so she uses her powers to turn cops into pigs, slaughtering each of them to provide fresh pork for a barbecue restaurant she owns.
  • SCP-5740 is a chain of automated food stalls that dispense “dado-nuts” (SCP-5740-A), which are cursed donuts that have a strange property; if a police officer eats one of them, then they’ll soon suffer from severe diarrhea which ultimately leads to defecating a live pig out of their anus. The size and number of these swine will vary depending on the affected cop’s morality; the more crooked they are, then more big pigs will be pooped out as a result.
    • According to Project Isorropía, SCP-5740-A was used to successfully neutralize SCP-973-2 (a demonic, homicidalpoliceman known as “Smokey”, who brutally murders anyone he catches speeding through a highway that he “patrols” at night). One of the Foundation’s D-class personnel somehow managed to force-feed one of the dado-nuts to Smokey, which apparently caused the demon-cop’s body to violently explodefrom a ridiculously large number of pigs bursting out of him.

    Webcomics

• Vixen: NYC: Maksai gains the ability to change his minions into animal men. He turns a cop who stumbles onto his hideout into a pig-man, lampshading it as an appropriate transformation.

    Western Animation

• In the Samurai Jack episode “Jack and the Scotsman“, the title characters both get chased through a bayou by a Pig Sheriff leading a posse of hillbilly henchmen and robot alligators, looking to collect the massive bounty on both of them. These bounty hunters all play up redneck stereotypes to comic effect, especially with the Pig Sheriff speaking in a ridiculously fast-paced vernacular that sounds like gibberish.
• Chief Clancy Wiggum from The Simpsons is the comically corrupt and dimwitted leader of the Springfield Police Department. He has some resemblance to a pig, due to being an obese glutton with a nose that looks like a pig’s snout, a big portly belly, and small black shoes resembling hooves. His pig-like traits have been lampshaded by multiple jokes throughout the series:
  • In “Cape Fear“, Chief Wiggum complains during Sideshow Bob’s parole hearing that he called him “Chief Piggum“, which makes everyone in the courtroom laugh. Wiggum then admits that it was Actually Pretty Funny.
  • In “Lisa the Vegetarian“, Wiggum laughs at the roasted pig’s nose at Homer’s BBQ, even though his nose looks the same.
  • In “Take My Wife, Sleaze“, Homer’s biker gang (the Hell’s Satans) harass Wiggum, calling him a “pig” and repeatedly “oinking” at him. Later when a rival biker gang with the same name takes over the Simpsons’ house, Wiggum refuses to help, explaining that “Those pig noises you made really hurt my feelings… looking like a pig as I do.”
  • In “Day of the Jackanapes“, Wiggum refers to his feet as “little hooves” while he struggles to keep up with Bob’s walking pace.
  • In the “Treehouse of Horror XIII” segment “The Island of Dr. Hibbert,” Clancy and his wife Sarah both get turned into human-pig hybrids by Dr. Hibbert, thus making Wiggum a literal pig cop.
  • In “Marge Gamer“, Wiggum’s avatar in Earthland Realms looks a lot like a Pig Man.

imagery cited https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PolicePig