Spike Lee Paid $200,000 By NYPD For Consulting On Ad Campaign

Both Black Lives Matter and rapper Vic Mensa have called out the director for the campaign.

Spike Lee, one of the New York Police Department's most outspoken critics, reportedly worked with the organization on an ad campaign to help improve relations with minority communities.

The NYPD paid Lee $200,000 to be a consultant for the campaign. The partnership was revealed in the Police Foundation's most recent tax filing covering some of 2016 and 2017, according to the New York Post.

"The Foundation approached and consulted several creative teams including the Spike DDB agency to help develop a public awareness campaign that would aim to strengthen the partnership between the NYPD and the communities it serves," Brady Littlefield, a spokesman for the Foundation, said. "We received tremendous input and ideas, and that process ultimately resulted in last spring’s neighborhood policing ad campaign."

As The Daily Beast notes, the president of the Black Lives Matter Greater New York spoke out against the deal, saying

"What [the NYPD] need[s] to do is go to people providing solutions for police misconduct."

Rapper Vic Mensa also addressed the report, taking to Twitter to write the following: "Told you guys he was a clown."

Lee has yet to respond.

In related news, the BlacKkKlansman director revealed in a recent interview that he told Obama about the violence that took place in Charlottesville last year.

While speaking with TIME magazine, Lee recalled watching the protests on TV and going to tell Obama about it as he was playing golf on a course near Lee's house.

"I said, Mr. President, did you hear what happened in Charlottesville? He hadn't," Lee said. "I could see on his face—that shock. It was Aug. 12, year of our Lord, 2017."

Source: NY Post