- The claim that a video shows two Muslim New York Police Department officers taking away a woman’s dog for disturbing the peace, supposedly in the interests of enforcing the Islamic teachings known as Shariah, is still under investigation.
- We contacted the NYPD to ask questions and request an incident report to independently confirm several details, including to fully verify the woman’s purported charge or charges. We also filed a formal request to receive officers’ body camera footage and will update this story if we receive further information.
The person who says he recorded the video told Snopes he knew of “no evidence” regarding the claim the officers were Muslim, or that Shariah or the Islamic faith played any role in the incident at all. - The video made the social media rounds as a 3-minute clip with dramatic background music, showing NYPD officers questioning and detaining a woman walking her dog. At least one officer grabs hold of the dog’s leash and also grabs the woman’s arm. The clip’s onscreen captions read: “Sharia is starting in NYC” and “Muslim police taking dog for disturbing the peace.”
- A viewing of the original 16-minute video revealed that the officers didn’t appear to actually take away the dog, and that they apparently charged her with disorderly conduct.
In early November, people shared a video allegedly showing two Muslim New York police officers taking away a woman’s dog for disturbing the peace, supposedly as their way of enforcing Shariah (Islamic law).
Shariah serves to guide the moral and religious practices of Muslims, such as prayer, pilgrimages, fasting, charitable donations and personal virtue.
As a prime example of the rumor, on Nov. 8, an X user posted (archived) the 3-minute clip showing an incident that apparently began moments earlier. Two NYPD officers stand on a street corner at night, with one of the officers alleging that the woman, who identifies herself as a nurse who recently had surgery on her foot, was standing or dancing and recording a video “in the middle of the street” and wouldn’t move to the sidewalk, blocking the officers’ vehicle.
The officer grabs the woman’s arm, briefly takes her dog’s leash and tells her that if she doesn’t identify herself, they will arrest her and take her “to prison,” adding, “We’ll take the dog, too.” He then grabs her arm again.
The onscreen caption reads, “Sharia is starting in NYC,” and “Muslim police taking dog for disturbing the peace. Oh wait for that dog ban boy oh boy.”
Reverse image searches found others sharing the same video and captions on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived) and X (archived), as well as clips with similar (archived) claims (archived).
The video appears authentic in that someone on the scene genuinely recorded it and did not create it with artificial intelligence.
The brief clip shared on social media omits 13 minutes of the original 16-minute video (archived), which shows that while one of the officers did briefly grab the dog’s leash, it doesn’t appear he actually took away the animal — nor did he or the other officer mention the dog as a problem. The longer, raw video not only lacks the dramatic music heard in the shorter clip but contains no mention of religion or Shariah at all.
TikTok user @nuyoricannomad, who said he recorded and first posted the raw video, told Snopes he knew of “no evidence” regarding the claim of the officers’ religion playing a factor in the incident.
Pending more corroboration, Snopes hasn’t added a fact-check rating to this article. We contacted the NYPD to ask questions and to request an incident report. We also filed a formal request to receive the police body camera footage. We will update this story if we receive further data.
People reposting the video with mentions of Shariah and a “dog ban” appeared to be playing on the exaggerated notion that Muslims hate dogs and view them as unclean. The stereotype apparently originates from an overgeneralization not from the Quran, but instead from the hadith, a narrative record of the sayings or customs of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions.
Video location and citation
In our interview with @nuyoricannomad — who wished to not be identified by name — he said he recorded the video around 3 a.m. Nov. 8. The incident occurred on the northwest corner of Second Avenue and East 39th Street in Manhattan’s Murray Hill neighborhood.
According to @nuyoricannomad, both he and the woman, who he indicated is his friend, were walking north and using the East 39th Street crosswalk on the west side of Second Avenue. “We were walking slowly but she had recent surgery,” he said, referencing her foot, which she briefly mentions in the clip (at 8:55).
At about the same time, the officers were traveling by car south on Second Avenue and attempting to make a right over the same crosswalk and onto East 39th Street, similar to the turning white SUV visible in this Google Street View image (archived).
Regarding charges for the woman, @nuyoricannomad said, “The citation was written for disorderly conduct.” That charge, which Snopes is attempting to independently verify, would line up with a moment in the video in which one of the officers appears to make a phone call and mention disorderly conduct (at 3:30), possibly referencing New York state law’s descriptor of obstructing vehicular or pedestrian traffic.
What the full video shows
The full video appears to begin moments after the incident started. One of the officers grabs the woman’s arm and she tells him to stop touching her. He also takes her dog’s leash for a brief period of time, tells her she will go to prison if she doesn’t identify herself and says he’ll take her dog, too. He doesn’t clarify whether he’s joking about taking the dog to prison or seriously warning he’ll take her dog away if they take her into custody.
At least one person standing nearby tells the officers he’s calling 911 to ask for a supervisor to come to the scene. One of the officers tells that person to stand back and says, “You can do whatever you want.” (A user posting one popular Instagram video (archived) about the incident falsely claimed the officer said not “You” but “We,” as in, “We can do whatever we want.”)
The woman identifies herself as a nurse and challenges the officers’ version of events. For example, one officer says, “You were in the middle of the street taking video.” She responds, “I did not make a video.” He then tells her she’s being detained, saying, “You are not free to leave right now.”
The woman says she had the right to walk across the crosswalk with a walk signal (at 6:25 and 8:10). We haven’t yet been able to independently confirm the status of the traffic signal.
One of the officers alleges he, with the other officer in his passenger seat, was turning right and that the woman and others were in their way (ar 9:30). In that moment, he doesn’t challenge the woman’s claim she had the right of way with a walk signal.
Later in the video, an apparent police supervisor arrives and tells one of the officers to place @nuyoricannomad and another pedestrian under arrest if they interrupt the officers’ investigation again (at 12:20).
The video ends with one of the officers appearing to hand a citation to the woman, who then appears to be free to leave with her dog and friends.
As to what started the incident, @nuyoricannomad told us that “at no point were we just standing on the crosswalk or ‘dancing,'” referencing the officer’s allegation that the woman had been dancing (at 8:55).
“The point of the video was to show how the cops mishandled the situation and escalated to a point that was not necessary,” he said.
For further reading, we previously reported about a video allegedly showing thousands of Muslims marching in Dearborn, Michigan, demanding Shariah.
