My grandfather used to tell me stories about his time in the NYPD. He was one of those guys whose military or emergency services time was really central to them, but his stories tended to be self effacing, like about getting his uniform torn to shreds running after a purse snatcher - through a construction site.

There was exactly one story where he sounded actively *proud* to have done something violent in uniform - he literally tossed a German American Bund member back onto the subway platform for mouthing off about Hitler (this was sometime before the US entered the war, which wasn't a sure thing at the time).

I'm thinking about this as contrast to the story about *two* NYPD officers teaming up to toss someone beyond the gate for confronting them about not being masked during the pandemic.