About New York - A New York Police Officer Who Put Too Much on MySpace - NYTimes.com

Sign of the times

“You have your Internet persona, and you have what you actually do on the street,” Officer Ettienne said on Tuesday. “What you say on the Internet is all bravado talk, like what you say in a locker room.”

Except that trash talk in locker rooms almost never winds up preserved on a digital server somewhere, available for subpoena. The man on trial, Gary Waters, claimed that Officer Ettienne and his partner stopped him, beat him and then planted a gun on him to justify breaking three of his ribs.

Suddenly, Officer Ettienne was being held to the words that he wrote in cyberspace.

About New York - A New York Police Officer Who Put Too Much on MySpace - NYTimes.com