CNN's #AskACop Idea Didn't Go as Planned...

If there is anything the past year has taught us — and really, it's taught us quite a bit — it's that social media and cops don't mix. Unfortunately, no one told CNN this, at least not before they decided to encourage people to use the hashtag #AskACop as part of CNN's "Cops Under Fire" segment. The result was...predictable.

Seriously, history is pretty clear when it comes to police mixing with social media. There was that time that police in Maryland thought it would be good to live-tweet a prostitution sting. Or the time the NYPD's hashtag #myNYPD went down in flames. Or just this week when NYPD tweeted Jack Nicholson's speech from the movie A Few Good Men in which his character justifies ordering two marines to beat a third marine to death. Because apparently they didn't realize Nicholson was the bad guy? Very strange...

The moral of the story is that unless you are the police in Iceland, you should probably stay off social media.

Which CNN found out the hard way once their #AskACop hashtag became an outlet for people to express their frustration, criticisms, and just general disdain regarding cops. Like I said, literally everyone except CNN could see this coming a mile away.

It all started with CNN's initial tweet asking for responses:

And the rest is history.