New York City’s Streetsblog has uncovered that an officer assigned to the NYPD’s 78th Precinct in Park Slope has racked up an incredible 75 tickets since March 2017 on his personal Dodge Grand Caravan.
This list of misdeeds was uncovered during Streetsblog’s ongoing investigation into the reckless driving of police, and the worst driver they’ve found yet. The Grand Caravan with plates HLT9464 frequently parks in the “NYPD-only” spaces outside the Park Slope office, yet it apparently drives like the laws they enforce don’t apply to them.
Fifty-three of those 75 violations were for speeding, and five were for failing to stop at a red light. As for why Streetsblog believes this is a cop’s personal ride, they explained:
Every indication suggests that this is a police officer: For one thing, some of the tickets have been dismissed by judges under the coding “Admin Claim Granted,” a suggestion that the officer testified that his reckless driving was in the line of duty (in a Dodge Caravan?).
Those “Admin Claim Granted” dismissals given for violations made in the line of duty are pretty fishy, too. For one, this officer’s precinct is in Park Slope, where the average home price is nearly $1.26 million, per Zillow. It’s a neighborhood more known for stroller wars than turf wars, and I doubt any of those Bugaboos are hitting double-digits in speed.
Furthermore, only one of these violations even happened in the 78th Precinct, which meant that his duty must have taken him far out of that neighborhood.
You can view the mind-blowing full list of violations and photos of the Grand Caravan here, which includes multiple violations on the same day—a key sign that whoever’s driving just ain’t care. The upside is that the driver still had to pay 28 of those speeding tickets and three of the red-light tickets, so at least some justice was served.
Streetsblog’s wider investigation into 803 license plates held by police officers and NYPD employees found that 77 percent of the cars had had at least one ticket, 58 percent had had a serious moving violation like running a red light or speeding, and 37 percent had repeat serious moving violations. The cars they found parked in NYPD-only spaces or illegally parked with NYPD-issued placards outside the 78th Precinct were slightly worse, though; while just 75 percent had at least one ticket, 60 percent had serious moving violations, and 41.5 percent were repeat offenders when it came to serious moving violations.
New York City Council member Brad Lander recently proposed legislation that would impound vehicles with five or more moving violations in the past 12 months regardless of whether the car belonged to an NYPD employee or not, Streetsblog notes. Under the bill’s terms, this Grand Caravan would have been off the roads for most of the past two years.
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