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To protect and to soak: NYPD take on civilians in water gun fight on sweltering day in NYC

NYPD cops joined in a water fight with civilians on a scorching day in Queens after stopping at a 99-cent store to arm themselves with wat...

NYPD cops joined in a water fight with civilians on a scorching day in Queens after stopping at a 99-cent store to arm themselves with water pistols. 
Footage of the officers' antics was filmed and shared by a restaurant chef who delighted in seeing 'police playing with us' on the streets. 
Some of the laughing cops got out of their vehicles to spray water over bystanders on 165th Street while another fired their toy weapon from the seat of his car.     
The moment of light relief comes amid a looming crisis for the NYPD as it faces a drastic $1billion budget cut despite an alarming surge in murders, shootings and burglaries in the city.  
NYPD join in with water fight outside Mammas Kitchen in Queens
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A cop fires a water pistol from the window of a police car in Queens
One of the officers reputedly stopped at a 99-cent store to arm themselves with water pistols
Play fight: A cop fires a water pistol from the window of a police car in Queens after the officers stopped at a 99-cent store to arm themselves with water pistols 
The chef, who goes by the name Chef Matt, took the video while cooking on a barbecue grill on the street. 
Looking up from his food, he sees two police cars slowly approaching - before an orange water pistol appears at the window and a cop takes aim at a bystander. 
Two more cops then get out of the second police car and pull out their own water pistols, firing at a woman wearing a mask and brandishing her own toy weapon. 
Several others join in the water fight as Chef Matt declares 'look at this… you don’t get that nowhere' and repeats the name of the restaurant, Mama's Kitchen. 
Matt told the New York Post that the cops 'saw us playing with our water guns' and 'went to the 99 cent store and came back' so they could join in the fight. 
Several of the cops gave a 'shout out' to Mama's Kitchen at Matt's request before laughing with pedestrians as they continued their patrol. 
The moment of light relief comes amid a looming crisis for the NYPD as it faces a drastic $1billion budget cut
Some of the laughing cops got out of their vehicles to spray water over bystanders on 165th Street
Some of the laughing cops got out of their vehicles to spray water over bystanders on 165th Street while a restaurant owner filmed the moment of light relief
The jolly antics come as the NYPD faces a $1billion budget cut amid a surge in violent crime and a financial crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
On July 6, cops announced a 'sharp increase in shootings and violence' in June 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. 
Shootings were up by 130 per cent and rose in every borough of New York, while burglaries were up 118 per cent and murders 30 per cent. 
Over the first six months of 2020, there were 181 murders in the city - up by 23 per cent from the equivalent figure of 147 in the first half of 2019. 
New York City's 2021 budget will see $484million cut from the NYPD's operating budget and $354million transferred to other city agencies. 
The city faces a $9billion hole in its budget because of the virus pandemic, with warnings of lay-offs for as many as 22,000 municipal workers. 
The push for cuts was given further momentum by the George Floyd protests with their slogan of 'defunding the police' to prevent brutality against black people.  
The cuts include the cancellation of the July enrollment of what would have been more than 1,100 new recruits, though another class will be enrolled in October. 

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