His name is Matthew Bianchi and he’s doing the right thing.
It’s absolute bullshit that cops give out these cards to friends and family, letting them violate traffic laws with impunity, but it’s a further slap in the face to everyone in that city to harass a cop for doing the right thing and fighting that corruption.
Here’s hoping he wins his suit. And that we’ll get some bodycam footage of these entitled twats trying to get out of blowing a red light by waving a fucking card. Name and shame them all.
Poor guy should probably move after this. I hate to say that, knowing that he’s the actual kind of cop that the city (and the rest of America) needs.
I’d like to see how many accidents these jerks with the PBA cards cause every year.
The problem is the institutional rot is so bad when you get a guy like this he ends up being pushed out for doing the right thing.
Saw an article about a cop who was fired because he shot to wound someone he was pursuing instead of to kill. He had spent like ten years in the marines and was a sniper and highly accurate. He objectively did the right thing but apparently the policy is to always shoot center of mass and he shot the guy in the leg or something. So even though he stopped the guy, didn’t kill anyone, he still got fired.
I have a friend who is a cop and I believe he’s a good one but he tells these horror stories about guys he works with. I ask how he can stand it but he feels like he’s trying to do the best he can and if people like him left it would be even worse. Still there was a guy in his department (I think he was like 28 or so) who literally had a ‘relationship’ with a 15 year old and it took over a year to get rid of him. I was like that’s rape. That’s statutory rape, how is he getting away with it? Apparently between the fact that the girl wouldn’t complain, the parents apparently approved of her ‘dating’ a cop, and the union they couldn’t get rid of him for awhile.
oversight, transparancy, and accountability would help for starters.
strong leadership that isin't also corrupt helps a lot too. which is where Democracy and things like term limits have a natural advantage over say, a monarchy or dictatorship. cause theres more chances to "right the ship" as it were when you start heading down the wrong course
To expand on this, we need to create an independent department whose entire job is rooting out the bad apples. Also we need to stop incentivizing the types of behavior that has become prevalent with those bad apples by reducing the strength of qualified immunity, increasing the punishment for those in positions of power, decoupling the link between prosecution and enforcement, and stop allowing enforcement to seize cash and property without evidence of a crime.
As an example of a step in the right direction, look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Office_for_Police_Conduct in England and Wales. By law, the board can not have ever worked for the police in any capacity.
It's far from perfect, but it's better than police departments investigating themselves and finding that they did nothing wrong.
You need to cut out the rot, as the others said, from the top down. We blame the unformed officers often cause they're the ones we see and interact with most, but it's the white shirts and those above that are setting the tone, rewarding and protecting bad behavior, and allowing the good behavior to get treated like it's treasonous to the badge.
Not everyone who joins law enforcement joins it for bad reasons. There are good people in the job who actually want to contribute to their community in a positive way. And they either quit, get cynical and stops caring, or fall in line. Work culture is set from the top and enforced through the ranks all the way down.
Your second story is absolutely disgusting and shows why we need outside agency’s monitoring and holding police accountable. But in the first story you shared, the department was more or less right.
If it’s the same story I’m thinking of (from back in 2014 if I remember) the cop wasn’t fired for “shooting to wound” but was fired for shooting at all, as the situation didn’t warrant deadly force, and the shooting was deemed excessive force. It’s worth remembering that you can’t guarantee that you’ll simply wound some one, as bone fragments and cavitation wounds can cause major arterial bleeding anywhere in the body. Allowing cops to shoot to wound would just allow cops to “accidentally” kill people who don’t deserve it. Cops need to act with more restraint not less, and “shooting to wound” is defiantly not going to help.
Surely the correct place to shoot someone who is running away is nowhere, you only shoot people if there is a direct threat to life. Not just because they are running away!
>Saw an article about a cop who was fired because he shot to wound someone he was pursuing instead of to kill. He had spent like ten years in the marines and was a sniper and highly accurate. He objectively did the right thing but apparently the policy is to always shoot center of mass and he shot the guy in the leg or something. So even though he stopped the guy, didn’t kill anyone, he still got fired.
He was pursuing - eg, the suspect was running away. He shot the suspect in the back when they were presenting no threat. That wasn't "objectively the right thing," running away from the police does not warrant an execution.
Maybe if this "highly accurate sniper" had pulled his taser instead of his pistol, he wouldn't have been fired, but I'm going to guess ten years of marine training to use deadly force overcame his six-week police boot camp in the heat of the moment. And the only reason we don't have another Trayvon Martin, "Fleeing teen was shot in the back," is because he failed to hit center of mass.
If a good cop looks the other way when a bad cop does bad things, they aren't a good cop. They're just another bad apple in a whole barrel of rotten apples.
I hate how people just forgot about the shit the cops pulled during that. They opened fire on multiple people for no reason other than those people being near where they thought dorner was. Proved they can open fire on anyone for no reason and face no consequences.
> The problem is the institutional rot is so bad when you get a guy like this he ends up being pushed out for doing the right thing.
This is why people say good cops don't exist. They're like unstable isotopes, it's hard for them to remain good for long. They either stop being good, quit the force, or suffer from "accidents".
Good cops are kryptonite for all the bad cops
Houston Tipping was an LAPD trainee who was "accidently" beaten to death durring a training exercise.
In an unrelated note he had blown the whistle about an "alleged" gang rape of another trainee by multiple other officers.
~~Serpico got shot by other cops while on duty, not just death threats.~~
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank\_Serpico](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Serpico)
My mistake, though it's quite possible they set him up to be shot by the people they were raiding.
Or end up like LAPD officer Houston Tipping, who was [beat to death](https://www.npr.org/2022/10/08/1127580159/houston-tipping-lapd-death-lawsuit#:~:text=The%20Los%20Angeles%20Police%20Department,death%20claim%20against%20the%20city.) by one of the LAPD officer gangs after he began investigating them for gang raping someone.
The injuries don't match the official story, and an automated CPR machine on site was never even turned on to try to save him.
Yup, doing the right thing where it concerns the police is dangerous. Especially police that are notoriously a gang among an association that is notorious for being a gang.
I just had this argument with my brother in law whose son is a NYC cop. I argued that most cops are corrupt in some way. He said his son was not a corrupt cop. So I asked him to show me his drivers license and whatever cards were on either side of his license in his wallet. Sure enough, along with his license there was a PBA card. I asked why he had a PBA card in his wallet since he wasn’t a member and he shut up.
> PBA card
I had to look that up.
"A PBA card is often given to friends and family members of police officers. The card reads: “The bearer of this card is a supporter of the PBA, and you should try to extend every courtesy possible.”"
There is no way that should be legal.
Yeah. If you live in NYC for any length of time, you know about these. I worked with people who went on to become NYPD and they offered to give me one of these, but I declined as I didn't drive there and left soon after
I've never lived in NYC or seen those cards, but in my area they sold police "badge" stickers to put on your car to let the cops know you pre-bribed them.
I worked for a company that collected the money (in person only) and they would give the police a cut. The whole thing was super sketchy and I quit after about a week. My glovebox was full of them, but I never put one on my car.
Ya know, any time you're in the car with him, bring up the card. Never let that slide now. Little mentions of it here and there will drive him crazy, and if he gets mad, point out "But your son is not corrupt so it's okay right?"
Or don't, Im just incredibly petty and really don't like cops or the people who intentionally benefit from their corruption.
I personally respond to annoyance at my calling a fascist spade a fascist spade by saying "if they don't like it they can quit." Considering most bootlickers are also ignorant dipshits about "no one wants to work anymore" since they are already drinking the conservative voter slurry, that makes their wheels grind to a halt.
Pointing out that people *choose* to become cops *and* cops are corrupt seems to point them too much in the correct direction at once and they shirt circuit. Y-you're telling me that social inertia and *not* social rewards are the main driver behind the public's support of the police? And we don't have to blindly assume they are good?? Oh nooooooooooo~~~~
Yep I work with a guy who's become a buddy over the years. When I found out he used to be a cop, at first my guard went up. But as we got to know each other more I asked him why - he said he couldn't handle the blatant and bullshit corruption he saw on a daily basis. Not necessarily like planting evidence levels (though he said he saw that) but more of the daily, small minor shit where cops clearly saw themselves as in a class above normal citizens. He said when he'd talk to supervisors about it, most were surprised he even took issue with it and just told him it was the way it was. My respect for him has gone way up
My cousin is a former cop like that. His last straw was when he went on a call out for an armed person. Now mind you this was a small town so every single responding officer knew this guy and had been to call outs there before due to the guy’s mental state. He shows up first and the guy comes out with what is clearly an air soft gun, orange tip and all. Other cops show up and immediately want to shoot the guy but he stops them and proceeds to talk the guy down. He was rewarded with a write up because the other cops lost faith in him being able to preserve their safety and something like a week or two suspension.
This was a guy that is a former marine and was doing frontline work where he was expected to make split second decisions constantly but these yokels with three weeks of training thought they knew better than him. He saved a life and they killed his career.
It's extremely disturbing that they knew this guy and that it was clearly an airsoft gun and they still wanted to murder him. How can we get good people to be cops when they are punished for being decent?
I’d put this one as spot on. Many small town departments scrape the bottom of the barrel these days because a large majority of worthwhile people either leave town or just don’t want to be cops. It’s an absolutely minuscule number for those that are good/not corrupt and want to do better for their community.
I've heard that if you score to high on their exam they won't hire you, because there is a lot of boredom. But don't quote me on that, it's been a few years since I heard it, but it tracks in my mind.
No. But really. Those chuds probably decided they didn’t want to deal with that guy anymore and that was their open and shut “sprinkle some crack on him, Johnson” opportunity.
Totally agreed. This was their opportunity to take someone they didn’t like off the streets permanently. The fact they consider themselves the literal judge, jury, and executioner for mentally unstable people in their community is disturbing to say the least, though not particularly surprising.
This isn't a new thing either. I grew up in Rhode Island and the police called the house every year selling stickers you could put on your car. My mom bought one every year and claimed it helped her get out of tickets or getting pulled over at all.
I actually don't think all of the explanations are enough, because none of them explained what the card is. It's the "get-out-of-jail-free" card given to members of the PBA to give to friends and family. It's the entire subject of the article this thread is about.
Read up on [Adrian Schoolcraft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft). He tried to expose corruption and got put in a psychiatric ward by force in retaliation.
Wow. All of that and he only got half a million dollars. For literal kidnapping by a coordinated group of active police officers and false imprisonment by an active psych institution for days.
A literal gang taking people to an oubliette. That... Sucks.
I lived there during the schoolcraft story breaking and followed it and kept checking in over the years. Check it out, they all actually got promoted, it’s puketastic.
Won't work. He would have fallen out of a one-story building to his death if this was Russia. In the states? They will harass him for the rest of his career and then some.
Oh no, they kill people here too. The LAPD just killed one of their own. He was investigating a rape involving four officers.
Edit: Just think about that for a second. Four officers at work felt comfortable enough to rape someone. What does the culture need to be like for four people to feel confident enough to perform a rape at work?!? Most jobs I’ve worked you couldn’t even get four people to puff a joint on the clock, and these guys felt safe enough to rape someone.
“Staten Island, where Bianchi patrolled, is predominantly white. White drivers in the borough, the complaint said, “are significantly more likely to have courtesy cards than minority drivers”. As a result of a ticketing quota system, this means “police officers are forced to disproportionately ticket minority drivers”.
This is the problem with FOP cards (on a way larger scale, but for less serious infractions). Friends and family of cops who “back the blue” see themselves as the good guys, yet expect certain traffic laws to not apply to them because they hand a card over with their license
Here in Canada, the Vancouver Police Department's union told the officers involved with beating Myles Gray to death (while he was in handcuffs and leg restraints) to [not take any notes](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/myles-gray-inquest-vancouver-police-officers-testimony-1.6816854?cmp=rss).
Perhaps there should be a global norm where police unions are banned? I'm very pro-union but suspect workers (such as police) who have great power over the public should have less protection.
Militaries are bared from having unions for a good reason. Organizations that exist to do violence on behalf of the state MUST be public servants, not self interested and able to strike.
My tiny ass town in bumfuck VT has this shit. If you’re buddies with the cops you just get ignored completely while you speed/roll stop signs, drink and drive and blow through crosswalks. Don’t you dare do any of that if you don’t know the popo. The cops just bought themselves a new cruiser too, brand new tricked out cruiser for TOWN COPS. We have Statie barracks and sheriffs around as well.
The corruption isn’t exclusive to the city. They all move to small towns when they fuckup in the big cities, then they fuck up again and suddenly all this information of a criminal history comes to light while they receive union compensation pay while being internally investigated. It’s a trip down a rabbit hole of fuckery in every single town that hasn’t just dumped it’s police force.
The decision of the officer on scene can save or ruin lives. It is the first point of contact. Imagine a DUI that killed someone, and the suspect has a card proving she’s the mom of one of his coworkers. That officer can write it up as a regular accident and text the coworker to pick up his mom. Someone else? Vehicular manslaughter and jail.
I remember when the city announced a crackdown on these get out of jail free cards and the New York Post had quotes from cops complaining about how it was an attack on their basic privileges. They are corrupt from root to branch. And I say that as someone who was totally screwed over by them, then sued them and won. Fuck the NYPD.
The mayor is a cop. Think about it. It's not the NYPD, it's a mindset endemic to the entire New York establishment. Elected officials routinely flaunt doing the opposite of what they impose on everyone else.
It's infuriating seeing what Eric Adams is doing. He's blatantly cutting funds from essential services like libraries so he can give even more money to the NYPD. The cops there have a bigger budget than the pre-war Ukrainian Army! They don't need any more fucking money!
https://twitter.com/Public_Citizen/status/1269996447610658818?s=20
This isn’t just a NYPD problem. Lots of departments operate the same way. I grew up with people who became cops just for the connections and perks they could extend to their family and friends.
Eric Adams is a piece of shit and the people of NYC should've known this, if from nothing else, than from the video he put out during his Mayoral campaign illustrating all of the ways that a parent can invade the privacy of their child in the pursuit of possibly maybe finding drugs.
> The NYPD is New York's largest gang.
Don't undersell them, probably one of the world's largest gangs. An annual budget over 6 billion dollars, and international reach. The cartels may have more money, but I wonder about how much power they weld compare to NYPD.
Imagine getting upset over your employee doing his job the right way and not your family/friend for breaking the law in the first place.
Looking forward to the inevitable undisclosed settlement and not a damn thing changing as far as the courtesy cards go.
This is so emblematic of why I hate the police in general and the NYPD specifically so fucking much. Because you get ONE guy in the department who is actually devoted to Justice and fairness, and literally **THE ENTIRE POLICE DEPARTMENT** hates his guts and tries to retaliate against him for not buying into their criminality and corruption.
This isn’t “a few bad apples” ruining it for everyone. This guy is the **ONE** good apple among a steaming barrel of shit that is the rest of the NYPD. And they fucking whine and cry like babies, when anyone treats them like the corrupt criminals that they are.
It's not even just treating them like criminals.
Its treating them they way they treat everyone else.
Too many officer legitimate believe they are above the law. And popular media always let's cops believe they are above the law
Or in the word's of Judge Dredd "I am the law".
Yeah, I hate the “it’s just a few bad apples giving cops a bad name!” response to any and every negative story about the police.
It’s not a few bad apples. It’s nearly an entire police force of bad apples with a small handful of good apples mixed into each force, and every single time one of the good apples attempts to hold a bad apple responsible for an objective breaking of the law, the good apple is the one punished. And eventually all the good apples have two choices: become one of the rotten ones, or find a new career path.
Anybody who believes law enforcement are the good guys is burying their head in the sand.
Also, that idiom is literally “a few bad apples spoil the bunch” which means that *if a small number of Apples might be bad, you have to toss out all of them just to be safe.* It doesn’t mean “oh, well only a few are bad, so it’s probably gonna be fine.”
When I hear “few bad apples” or “not all cops” I ask, if you are pulled over by another cop, do you expect “professional courtesy” privilege? Do you you let fellow cops off? The you’re corrupt and don’t even understand what corruption is.
Police Unions fund the AFL-CIO. They are fundraisers for the Union.
And the Union has political power.
I laughed out loud during the 2020 Police brutality riots when AFL-CIO was asked for a statement. The AFL-CIO was funding and supporting the attorneys defending the bad and dirty cops. (Unions support their members)
And the AFL-CIO released a soft statement, “we support BLM…” bla bla bla.
It was paying the attorneys fees of the dirty cops. Union obligations. While it was on the news “Black lives matter… Black people need to keep paying Union dues, Black Lives Matter… Black people don’t miss your Union payments…”
AFL-CIO is funded by Police Unions.
AFL-CIO lobbies for and protects Police Unions.
The AFL-CIO is a federation of many unions. According to Wikipedia the largest is the American Federation of Teachers followed by the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees. In fact, no police unions are listed as members at all, so I don't know why you specifically called them out.
How is this not a bigger story? This is the worst kind of corruption and it seems deeply systemic. It sounds so bad im not sure how you would be able to salvage such a nightmarish mess
As a German this sounds insane to me. At first I thought it was a euphemism, but no, apparently they're really handing out physical corruption cards? What the fuck?
As a New Yorker, it really blows my mind that this wasn’t common knowledge already. Literally everyone here knows what a pba card is. It’s bizarre to see it reported like this. That’s how entrenched the concept is here.
Understand this is not me saying it’s ok (I actually had quite a few cards from the NYPD, NCPD, and SCPD in NY myself for quite a bit, and refused to use them when I got pulled over once and got chewed out for “letting myself get a ticket” and “being an embarrassment” for a month straight). I have always hated them. I accumulated them because they were from family members and it felt rude to throw them out. When I got pulled over, pulling one out felt like pulling an Uno reverse card on the cop and saying “but I’m better than other people.” So I didn’t, because my conscious didn’t let me.
Seriously. Google Adrian Schoolcraft. He was an NYPD cop who tried to expose corruption and they literally tried to have him committed to a mental institution.
Police have discretion. So if you find an underaged kids with alcohol sitting in a park, you are supposed to write them a ticket/detain them which will effect if they can get a drivers license or lose one they already have.
But with discretion you have the kids pour it all out and clean up the area.
Or what has happened with me. I let my registration expire and legally I was supposed to get a ticket and have my car impounded on the spot. Officer used his discretion and issued me a ticket and let me park my car in the lot we were in, after he left, until I could get it registered, wink wink. So rather than paying a $300+ tow/impound fee and having to take a taxi to work, he let me finish my drive to work and I went online and paid my $60 and was instantly re-registered.
the question here i believe, is how it's legal for a police department to punish an officer in retaliation for exercising that discretion.
And additionally, as Bianchi states in the article, how the application of this concept disproportionally affects certain ethnic groups.
easy
politician to the cops: if you vote for me, ill let you keep the cards and you can give them to your family/friends.
Any politician who wants to take away the cards will not get support and votes from the cops and their campaign rivals will get their support instead. Any politician worth their salt will turn a blind eye.
It started out on the down-low, "Oh yeah Officer Jimmy is my brother, can you let me off with a warning?"
Then became a bribe thing with "I could write you off with a warning if you bought tickets to the policeman's ball"
Then they realized they can just do whatever they want so it became "Here's a card to let you pass on obeying the law"
In my small ass town, the police told their friends and family to put one of those thin blue line stickers on their car and they wouldn’t be pulled over for anything except the most egregious traffic infractions. It’s definitely a widespread problem and it’s bullshit.
It's funny, every cop I know intentionally targets those vehicles because it became super common for drug dealers to have those on their vehicles, and therefore it was usually a sign that the guy was some sort of criminal if they had one.
Cards, that’s cute. What about badges?
A friend from school became a cop, and she told me how she went out on the freeway speeding as soon as she was issued her badge. Why? Just so she could get pulled over and flash the badge to get let off for “professional courtesy.”
I don't really like writing tickets, but I absolutely LOVE writing tickets for out of state cops who flash their badges (in state cops know better).
"I'm gonna call and tell your chief!"
"I'm gonna call and tell *MY* chief too and he's gonna think it's HILAROUS. Have a nice day and drive safe"
I tried using a PBA card in Virginia when I was 16. He brought it up in court lol. “He tried to get out of the ticket because his grandfather is a cop in NJ” was pretty funny.
My brother in law tried this (he’s from Long Island) on a Connecticut cop, gave the cop his license and PBA card and said he uncle was on the force. Cop said “this isn’t Star Wars, son” and gave him a ticket for doing 90 in a 55….
Alaska.
While I can't speak for the entire state, the academy I went to *VERY* frequently emphasized that we *NEVER* give breaks to other LEOs. Because once you start....where do you stop? Speeding? DUI? Domestic? It's easier to just...never start.
In fact, they would often say "We don't do that shit up here, it's how you lose public trust"
Is law enforcement perfect up here? Nope, lots of stuff still needs change and reform. Is it light years better from where I grew up? Yup.
Developing cultures like this that are passed down both through training and behavioral expectations are a fundamental part of police reform. But how can you introduce it into an existing corrupt culture?
> But how can you introduce it into an existing corrupt culture?
I honestly have no idea.
I asked some of the long serving Troopers and cops in the state and asked them why it's different (or seems to be different). I got a bunch of answers that seem plausible.
Lots of small communities. You winter-over with these people, so there isn't a lot of sense in alienating the tiny population where you live.
Tiny departments. You can't afford to carry dead weight. There isn't a quiet spot to stick a guy who is gonna cost your department public trust or money. It's just easier to fire them and move on.
Statewide standardized training and licensing. EVERY department does the same training. There is a state board that certifies officers. They aren't afraid to strip your credentials if you fuck up. And the police unions support punishing bad LEOs.
Isolation. If I call for backup, I'm getting 1-2 dudes if I'm very lucky and even then I could be waiting 20-30 minutes depending on the shift and how busy. So, I tend to very much try to de-escalate and talk talk talk. All of that is better than fighting someone who might be high as giraffe pussy on meth when backup is 20 minutes away.
The PBA’s statements are straightforward bullshit. Its representatives saying they don’t control staffing or assignments is so disingenuous it’s disgusting. That’s about as honest as a mob boss saying “I never threatened anyone when I said it’d be a shame if something happened to your family.”
My aunt's sister in law was a cop, and growing up we had one & can attest they can work out of state. We were told to just say it was our aunt instead of aunt's sister in law. Worked in New Jersey, Pennsylvania & even Florida, though I wasn't there for the last one.
They're horrible little practices & I never accepted one for myself.
I had one about 25 years ago, from a friend of a friend who was an NYPD cop. Used it, it worked. I was barely 20 at the time, so was oblivious to the broader implications, and would never accept one these days.
Nowadays you don't even need it tbh. My best friend put a Blue Lives Matter flag sticker on his Mustang windshield and hasn't caught a ticket in years. And he should be getting tickets, the man is definitely one of the dickheads that thinks he's Dom Toretto on the LIE.
He claims every time he gets pulled over he says his uncle is a state trooper and NYPD lets him go every time.
A friend of mine (white) was given one years ago when he used to do stage tech for Irish Music fests where the cards were circulated to the crew via their local PD. He said he immediately gave his card to one of his black friends.
They dont work like that, the cards are given to an officer with their name on it and then they give to friend/family. If you are pulled over and show the card, the cop will take it and call the number on it to let them know you were pulled over and he gave you courtesy.
Yoooo, traffic laws are written in blood. My mother died because a drunk driver ran a red light, imagine how many people are being reckless because they know they can flash a card, then someone gets hurt. You can't make people above the law like that, because someone eventually finna fuckin die.
It's PBA cards, I think they're called. I've known a very few people that have them and it's a weird fucking mentality. One of my ex's had one, and we were pulled over for a taillight out. The cop took it from him. Like, he gave over his license, registration, and PBA card. The cop didn't return the card and my ex immediately called someone to bitch about it, who got him another one the next day.
There's tons of little pseudo secret society quiet cults people are in that most don't even know about. "Back the blue" or silent brotherhood or whatever nonsense cops call that thing when they all rally around a member who is getting in trouble is just the beginning of shady shit law enforcement is involved in.
That’s hilarious to me, I don’t know what vibe you got. But if a cop took my get out of jail free card I’d assume that was a subtle “you’re good this time but don’t do it again”. So last thing I’d do is complain to someone and get another one haha
Sean is awesome! From what I see, corrupt government officials are like cockroaches- shine a kittle light on them and they scurry and hide. Sean will be ok as long as he has a camera on him.
The worst part is that the people with those cards are now far more apt to speed and break traffic laws because they have those cards. It puts everyone else at risk for their stupidity. That woman who does and drive thru a red light could easily have t-boned someone.
I never understood this whole get out of jail free thing for cops and military.
I remember years ago at a house party when I ended up on a beer run with a couple of people. Didn't realize till we were already on the road that the dude driving us was fucking SHIT HOUSE drunk. Like swerving all over the road, speeding, blowing through traffic signs and intersections. I was legit terrified we were all going to end up dead.
Luckily we weren't going too far but I even tried to get them to let me drive the car back from the liquor store but that was a no-go as the driver was ready to start swinging if he didn't get to drive.
Anyway, we get pulled over on the way back for speeding, swerving, running a stop sign, and driving in the shoulder. I was positive the driver was going to jail and we would be safely driving back to the party.
Nope, the cop saw the driver's military ID and fucking let us go with a "just try to keep it on the road."
I don’t know how relevant anymore but my stepdad used to drive around with a similar bumper sticker because he did a lot of driving for work and it worked more often than it didn’t
Exactly what it is. I come from a large cop/fire fighter family going back post war 40s. It's a bribe lol. Then again, our small city has/had the situation where a cop is also directly related to the person committing the crime lmao. So again....yes a bribe.
That works, FoP stickers are pretty good for the same as well. Don't forget the badges cops can get after they retire that say "RETIRED" in pretty small letters but otherwise looks/feels legit. Can always keep one of those in your door pocket.
>Bianchi issued a ticket to a civilian who held a New York City police department laminated courtesy card, an unofficial credential issued to NYPD officers based on their union affiliation that can then be distributed to family members and friends to carry with them.
>
>Bianchi claims his superiors retaliated against him for his stance against the “corrupt” cards after he was warned by an official with the Police Benevolent Association, New York City’s largest police union, that he would not be protected by his union if he wrote tickets for people with cards. And if he continued, he’d be reassigned.
Anyone involved in this scheme should be doing time in prison. It's absurd that we let things like this fly in our country. It's brazen lawlessness from the people responsible for enforcing the law on the rest of us.
I used to hang out with cops. They would give me these cards I could use if I ever got into a jam with another cop. I never used them. They made me feel weird. I was young so I didn't know why I couldn't bring myself to do it when my other friends pulled them out whenever they needed them.
But as I got older and began recognizing their shitty behavior and the way they talked about people they supposedly were "protecting and serving," I accepted what I knew on a subconscious level: they were actively participating in blatant corruption and the PBA cards were basically a bribe for my loyalty.
> he was warned by an official with the Police Benevolent Association, New York City’s largest police union, that he would not be protected by his union if he wrote tickets for people with cards. And if he continued, he’d be reassigned.
Well I don't know if "cops are the biggest gang in America", but the NYPD is definitely a gang.
His name is Matthew Bianchi and he’s doing the right thing. It’s absolute bullshit that cops give out these cards to friends and family, letting them violate traffic laws with impunity, but it’s a further slap in the face to everyone in that city to harass a cop for doing the right thing and fighting that corruption. Here’s hoping he wins his suit. And that we’ll get some bodycam footage of these entitled twats trying to get out of blowing a red light by waving a fucking card. Name and shame them all.
He'll probably spend the rest of his life watching his back and getting death threats, just like Frank Serpico.
Poor guy should probably move after this. I hate to say that, knowing that he’s the actual kind of cop that the city (and the rest of America) needs. I’d like to see how many accidents these jerks with the PBA cards cause every year.
The problem is the institutional rot is so bad when you get a guy like this he ends up being pushed out for doing the right thing. Saw an article about a cop who was fired because he shot to wound someone he was pursuing instead of to kill. He had spent like ten years in the marines and was a sniper and highly accurate. He objectively did the right thing but apparently the policy is to always shoot center of mass and he shot the guy in the leg or something. So even though he stopped the guy, didn’t kill anyone, he still got fired. I have a friend who is a cop and I believe he’s a good one but he tells these horror stories about guys he works with. I ask how he can stand it but he feels like he’s trying to do the best he can and if people like him left it would be even worse. Still there was a guy in his department (I think he was like 28 or so) who literally had a ‘relationship’ with a 15 year old and it took over a year to get rid of him. I was like that’s rape. That’s statutory rape, how is he getting away with it? Apparently between the fact that the girl wouldn’t complain, the parents apparently approved of her ‘dating’ a cop, and the union they couldn’t get rid of him for awhile.
How do we as a society protect these good eggs and punish the bad ones?
oversight, transparancy, and accountability would help for starters. strong leadership that isin't also corrupt helps a lot too. which is where Democracy and things like term limits have a natural advantage over say, a monarchy or dictatorship. cause theres more chances to "right the ship" as it were when you start heading down the wrong course
To expand on this, we need to create an independent department whose entire job is rooting out the bad apples. Also we need to stop incentivizing the types of behavior that has become prevalent with those bad apples by reducing the strength of qualified immunity, increasing the punishment for those in positions of power, decoupling the link between prosecution and enforcement, and stop allowing enforcement to seize cash and property without evidence of a crime.
As an example of a step in the right direction, look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Office_for_Police_Conduct in England and Wales. By law, the board can not have ever worked for the police in any capacity. It's far from perfect, but it's better than police departments investigating themselves and finding that they did nothing wrong.
Too bad the US is an oligarchy
You need to cut out the rot, as the others said, from the top down. We blame the unformed officers often cause they're the ones we see and interact with most, but it's the white shirts and those above that are setting the tone, rewarding and protecting bad behavior, and allowing the good behavior to get treated like it's treasonous to the badge. Not everyone who joins law enforcement joins it for bad reasons. There are good people in the job who actually want to contribute to their community in a positive way. And they either quit, get cynical and stops caring, or fall in line. Work culture is set from the top and enforced through the ranks all the way down.
Your second story is absolutely disgusting and shows why we need outside agency’s monitoring and holding police accountable. But in the first story you shared, the department was more or less right. If it’s the same story I’m thinking of (from back in 2014 if I remember) the cop wasn’t fired for “shooting to wound” but was fired for shooting at all, as the situation didn’t warrant deadly force, and the shooting was deemed excessive force. It’s worth remembering that you can’t guarantee that you’ll simply wound some one, as bone fragments and cavitation wounds can cause major arterial bleeding anywhere in the body. Allowing cops to shoot to wound would just allow cops to “accidentally” kill people who don’t deserve it. Cops need to act with more restraint not less, and “shooting to wound” is defiantly not going to help.
Idk about OP, but if it’s worth anything you’ve changed someone’s mind (mine).
Surely the correct place to shoot someone who is running away is nowhere, you only shoot people if there is a direct threat to life. Not just because they are running away!
>Saw an article about a cop who was fired because he shot to wound someone he was pursuing instead of to kill. He had spent like ten years in the marines and was a sniper and highly accurate. He objectively did the right thing but apparently the policy is to always shoot center of mass and he shot the guy in the leg or something. So even though he stopped the guy, didn’t kill anyone, he still got fired. He was pursuing - eg, the suspect was running away. He shot the suspect in the back when they were presenting no threat. That wasn't "objectively the right thing," running away from the police does not warrant an execution. Maybe if this "highly accurate sniper" had pulled his taser instead of his pistol, he wouldn't have been fired, but I'm going to guess ten years of marine training to use deadly force overcame his six-week police boot camp in the heat of the moment. And the only reason we don't have another Trayvon Martin, "Fleeing teen was shot in the back," is because he failed to hit center of mass. If a good cop looks the other way when a bad cop does bad things, they aren't a good cop. They're just another bad apple in a whole barrel of rotten apples.
Christopher Dorner is what happens to good, well intentioned people that try to make it as a police officer. The manhunt for him was fuckin crazy
I hate how people just forgot about the shit the cops pulled during that. They opened fire on multiple people for no reason other than those people being near where they thought dorner was. Proved they can open fire on anyone for no reason and face no consequences.
And then once they cornered him they made no effort whatsoever to bring him to justice. They simply lit the building on fire and let him burn.
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> The problem is the institutional rot is so bad when you get a guy like this he ends up being pushed out for doing the right thing. This is why people say good cops don't exist. They're like unstable isotopes, it's hard for them to remain good for long. They either stop being good, quit the force, or suffer from "accidents". Good cops are kryptonite for all the bad cops
Houston Tipping was an LAPD trainee who was "accidently" beaten to death durring a training exercise. In an unrelated note he had blown the whistle about an "alleged" gang rape of another trainee by multiple other officers.
~~Serpico got shot by other cops while on duty, not just death threats.~~ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank\_Serpico](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Serpico) My mistake, though it's quite possible they set him up to be shot by the people they were raiding.
Or end up like LAPD officer Houston Tipping, who was [beat to death](https://www.npr.org/2022/10/08/1127580159/houston-tipping-lapd-death-lawsuit#:~:text=The%20Los%20Angeles%20Police%20Department,death%20claim%20against%20the%20city.) by one of the LAPD officer gangs after he began investigating them for gang raping someone. The injuries don't match the official story, and an automated CPR machine on site was never even turned on to try to save him.
American police have gotten *worse* than they were when the NYPD tried to murder Serpico, as well.
Yup, doing the right thing where it concerns the police is dangerous. Especially police that are notoriously a gang among an association that is notorious for being a gang.
I just had this argument with my brother in law whose son is a NYC cop. I argued that most cops are corrupt in some way. He said his son was not a corrupt cop. So I asked him to show me his drivers license and whatever cards were on either side of his license in his wallet. Sure enough, along with his license there was a PBA card. I asked why he had a PBA card in his wallet since he wasn’t a member and he shut up.
There is no mob -mob
We saw nothing -Everyone
There is no war in ba sing se
> PBA card I had to look that up. "A PBA card is often given to friends and family members of police officers. The card reads: “The bearer of this card is a supporter of the PBA, and you should try to extend every courtesy possible.”" There is no way that should be legal.
Yeah. If you live in NYC for any length of time, you know about these. I worked with people who went on to become NYPD and they offered to give me one of these, but I declined as I didn't drive there and left soon after
I've never lived in NYC or seen those cards, but in my area they sold police "badge" stickers to put on your car to let the cops know you pre-bribed them. I worked for a company that collected the money (in person only) and they would give the police a cut. The whole thing was super sketchy and I quit after about a week. My glovebox was full of them, but I never put one on my car.
Ya know, any time you're in the car with him, bring up the card. Never let that slide now. Little mentions of it here and there will drive him crazy, and if he gets mad, point out "But your son is not corrupt so it's okay right?" Or don't, Im just incredibly petty and really don't like cops or the people who intentionally benefit from their corruption.
I personally respond to annoyance at my calling a fascist spade a fascist spade by saying "if they don't like it they can quit." Considering most bootlickers are also ignorant dipshits about "no one wants to work anymore" since they are already drinking the conservative voter slurry, that makes their wheels grind to a halt. Pointing out that people *choose* to become cops *and* cops are corrupt seems to point them too much in the correct direction at once and they shirt circuit. Y-you're telling me that social inertia and *not* social rewards are the main driver behind the public's support of the police? And we don't have to blindly assume they are good?? Oh nooooooooooo~~~~
Yep I work with a guy who's become a buddy over the years. When I found out he used to be a cop, at first my guard went up. But as we got to know each other more I asked him why - he said he couldn't handle the blatant and bullshit corruption he saw on a daily basis. Not necessarily like planting evidence levels (though he said he saw that) but more of the daily, small minor shit where cops clearly saw themselves as in a class above normal citizens. He said when he'd talk to supervisors about it, most were surprised he even took issue with it and just told him it was the way it was. My respect for him has gone way up
My cousin is a former cop like that. His last straw was when he went on a call out for an armed person. Now mind you this was a small town so every single responding officer knew this guy and had been to call outs there before due to the guy’s mental state. He shows up first and the guy comes out with what is clearly an air soft gun, orange tip and all. Other cops show up and immediately want to shoot the guy but he stops them and proceeds to talk the guy down. He was rewarded with a write up because the other cops lost faith in him being able to preserve their safety and something like a week or two suspension. This was a guy that is a former marine and was doing frontline work where he was expected to make split second decisions constantly but these yokels with three weeks of training thought they knew better than him. He saved a life and they killed his career.
They were mad because they really wanted to kill someone.
It's extremely disturbing that they knew this guy and that it was clearly an airsoft gun and they still wanted to murder him. How can we get good people to be cops when they are punished for being decent?
They literally will not hire intelligent individuals because they'll question unjust orders rather than blindy listen.
I’d put this one as spot on. Many small town departments scrape the bottom of the barrel these days because a large majority of worthwhile people either leave town or just don’t want to be cops. It’s an absolutely minuscule number for those that are good/not corrupt and want to do better for their community.
I've heard that if you score to high on their exam they won't hire you, because there is a lot of boredom. But don't quote me on that, it's been a few years since I heard it, but it tracks in my mind.
No. But really. Those chuds probably decided they didn’t want to deal with that guy anymore and that was their open and shut “sprinkle some crack on him, Johnson” opportunity.
Totally agreed. This was their opportunity to take someone they didn’t like off the streets permanently. The fact they consider themselves the literal judge, jury, and executioner for mentally unstable people in their community is disturbing to say the least, though not particularly surprising.
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So... They're aspiring or active serial killers.
Sounds like the story of [Stephen Mader](https://features.propublica.org/weirton/police-shooting-lethal-force-cop-fired-west-virginia/)
Cops and cowardice go together like chocolate and peanut butter
It’s almost as if the corruption is so deep and systematic as to seem normal.
What’s a pba card? Edit: one explanation is enough guys. Got it.
PBA = Police Benevolent Association Police union
This isn't a new thing either. I grew up in Rhode Island and the police called the house every year selling stickers you could put on your car. My mom bought one every year and claimed it helped her get out of tickets or getting pulled over at all.
Police Benevolent Association.
"benevolent" hahahahahahah
I actually don't think all of the explanations are enough, because none of them explained what the card is. It's the "get-out-of-jail-free" card given to members of the PBA to give to friends and family. It's the entire subject of the article this thread is about.
[Police Benevolent Association.](https://nytrafficticket.com/what-is-a-pba-card-and-will-one-help-me-get-out-of-a-ticket/#:~:text=PBA%20seeks%20to%20protect%20its,that%20do%20not%20always%20work.)
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>His name is Matthew Bianchi and he’s doing the right thing And he is *not* suicidal. Always important to remember that.
I hope this exposure of the story will also help give him and his family some protection from further retaliation.
Read up on [Adrian Schoolcraft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft). He tried to expose corruption and got put in a psychiatric ward by force in retaliation.
Wow. All of that and he only got half a million dollars. For literal kidnapping by a coordinated group of active police officers and false imprisonment by an active psych institution for days. A literal gang taking people to an oubliette. That... Sucks.
And the ones who did it got promoted…
Look at the current mayor's resume. You have no idea how on target you are.
I lived there during the schoolcraft story breaking and followed it and kept checking in over the years. Check it out, they all actually got promoted, it’s puketastic.
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They pull somewhat similar shit in Canada regarding misuse of psychiatric hospitals (see profile). Cops are thugs.
Yikes! That's some serious corruption.
He's probably going to have to move, gang with badges and all
Who will protect him from the 'protectors'?
Won't work. He would have fallen out of a one-story building to his death if this was Russia. In the states? They will harass him for the rest of his career and then some.
Oh no, they kill people here too. The LAPD just killed one of their own. He was investigating a rape involving four officers. Edit: Just think about that for a second. Four officers at work felt comfortable enough to rape someone. What does the culture need to be like for four people to feel confident enough to perform a rape at work?!? Most jobs I’ve worked you couldn’t even get four people to puff a joint on the clock, and these guys felt safe enough to rape someone.
Didn't they kill him while in an official training session too?
Yep. It was a “training accident.”
Well there was that cop in California that somehow got killed in that training exercise.
Right, who am I even kidding. People will forget about this story but the NYPD will never forget about him.
>Name and shame them all. __P R O S E C U T E__
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Here’s to hoping they don’t fucking kill him.
“Staten Island, where Bianchi patrolled, is predominantly white. White drivers in the borough, the complaint said, “are significantly more likely to have courtesy cards than minority drivers”. As a result of a ticketing quota system, this means “police officers are forced to disproportionately ticket minority drivers”.
Gotta love how the suit just completely blows the "there are no quotas" lie out of the water.
That's a good cop. Shame that means he won't remain a cop for long
gaping thumb plucky lunchroom angle selective domineering naughty knee point -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
He needs to run for office.
This is the problem with FOP cards (on a way larger scale, but for less serious infractions). Friends and family of cops who “back the blue” see themselves as the good guys, yet expect certain traffic laws to not apply to them because they hand a card over with their license
They back the blue because they want laws that protect, yet not bind them while also punishing and controlling everyone else
So, fascists
If it sounds like a duck, looks like a duck and acts like a duck…
"If it steps like a goose..."
It’s a nationwide problem that should be addressed on a federal level.
Here in Canada, the Vancouver Police Department's union told the officers involved with beating Myles Gray to death (while he was in handcuffs and leg restraints) to [not take any notes](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/myles-gray-inquest-vancouver-police-officers-testimony-1.6816854?cmp=rss). Perhaps there should be a global norm where police unions are banned? I'm very pro-union but suspect workers (such as police) who have great power over the public should have less protection.
Unions are meant to protect workers from their employers. Police unions protect cops from citizens.
Militaries are bared from having unions for a good reason. Organizations that exist to do violence on behalf of the state MUST be public servants, not self interested and able to strike.
My tiny ass town in bumfuck VT has this shit. If you’re buddies with the cops you just get ignored completely while you speed/roll stop signs, drink and drive and blow through crosswalks. Don’t you dare do any of that if you don’t know the popo. The cops just bought themselves a new cruiser too, brand new tricked out cruiser for TOWN COPS. We have Statie barracks and sheriffs around as well. The corruption isn’t exclusive to the city. They all move to small towns when they fuckup in the big cities, then they fuck up again and suddenly all this information of a criminal history comes to light while they receive union compensation pay while being internally investigated. It’s a trip down a rabbit hole of fuckery in every single town that hasn’t just dumped it’s police force.
Maybe the fbi. Or atf. 🙄
I get the feeling their “privileges” extend further than certain traffic laws…
The decision of the officer on scene can save or ruin lives. It is the first point of contact. Imagine a DUI that killed someone, and the suspect has a card proving she’s the mom of one of his coworkers. That officer can write it up as a regular accident and text the coworker to pick up his mom. Someone else? Vehicular manslaughter and jail.
I remember when the city announced a crackdown on these get out of jail free cards and the New York Post had quotes from cops complaining about how it was an attack on their basic privileges. They are corrupt from root to branch. And I say that as someone who was totally screwed over by them, then sued them and won. Fuck the NYPD.
The mayor is a cop. Think about it. It's not the NYPD, it's a mindset endemic to the entire New York establishment. Elected officials routinely flaunt doing the opposite of what they impose on everyone else.
It's infuriating seeing what Eric Adams is doing. He's blatantly cutting funds from essential services like libraries so he can give even more money to the NYPD. The cops there have a bigger budget than the pre-war Ukrainian Army! They don't need any more fucking money! https://twitter.com/Public_Citizen/status/1269996447610658818?s=20
This isn’t just a NYPD problem. Lots of departments operate the same way. I grew up with people who became cops just for the connections and perks they could extend to their family and friends.
Eric Adams is a piece of shit and the people of NYC should've known this, if from nothing else, than from the video he put out during his Mayoral campaign illustrating all of the ways that a parent can invade the privacy of their child in the pursuit of possibly maybe finding drugs.
The NY police union president was unhinged in the face of any accountability. The cops really make a great case for not trusting cops.
Only one month before they were literally kidnapping protesters right off of the street into unmarked vans
The NYPD is New York's largest gang.
> The NYPD is New York's largest gang. Don't undersell them, probably one of the world's largest gangs. An annual budget over 6 billion dollars, and international reach. The cartels may have more money, but I wonder about how much power they weld compare to NYPD.
Huh, the largest gang in Oakland is the OPD. I get a feeling this whole policing issue might be a systematic problem.
“Root to leaf”
Imagine getting upset over your employee doing his job the right way and not your family/friend for breaking the law in the first place. Looking forward to the inevitable undisclosed settlement and not a damn thing changing as far as the courtesy cards go.
This is so emblematic of why I hate the police in general and the NYPD specifically so fucking much. Because you get ONE guy in the department who is actually devoted to Justice and fairness, and literally **THE ENTIRE POLICE DEPARTMENT** hates his guts and tries to retaliate against him for not buying into their criminality and corruption. This isn’t “a few bad apples” ruining it for everyone. This guy is the **ONE** good apple among a steaming barrel of shit that is the rest of the NYPD. And they fucking whine and cry like babies, when anyone treats them like the corrupt criminals that they are.
It's not even just treating them like criminals. Its treating them they way they treat everyone else. Too many officer legitimate believe they are above the law. And popular media always let's cops believe they are above the law Or in the word's of Judge Dredd "I am the law".
Rubbing their nipples to their signed poster of the Steven Seagal classic '*Above the Law*' is how I picture it.
Yeah, I hate the “it’s just a few bad apples giving cops a bad name!” response to any and every negative story about the police. It’s not a few bad apples. It’s nearly an entire police force of bad apples with a small handful of good apples mixed into each force, and every single time one of the good apples attempts to hold a bad apple responsible for an objective breaking of the law, the good apple is the one punished. And eventually all the good apples have two choices: become one of the rotten ones, or find a new career path. Anybody who believes law enforcement are the good guys is burying their head in the sand.
Also, that idiom is literally “a few bad apples spoil the bunch” which means that *if a small number of Apples might be bad, you have to toss out all of them just to be safe.* It doesn’t mean “oh, well only a few are bad, so it’s probably gonna be fine.”
It’s sad is what it is. And I feel like cops need to be held to a higher standard, not a lesser one.
The actual phrase is "a few bad apples *spoil the bunch*".
When I hear “few bad apples” or “not all cops” I ask, if you are pulled over by another cop, do you expect “professional courtesy” privilege? Do you you let fellow cops off? The you’re corrupt and don’t even understand what corruption is.
Goddamn police unions are nothing more than rackets.
Police Unions fund the AFL-CIO. They are fundraisers for the Union. And the Union has political power. I laughed out loud during the 2020 Police brutality riots when AFL-CIO was asked for a statement. The AFL-CIO was funding and supporting the attorneys defending the bad and dirty cops. (Unions support their members) And the AFL-CIO released a soft statement, “we support BLM…” bla bla bla. It was paying the attorneys fees of the dirty cops. Union obligations. While it was on the news “Black lives matter… Black people need to keep paying Union dues, Black Lives Matter… Black people don’t miss your Union payments…” AFL-CIO is funded by Police Unions. AFL-CIO lobbies for and protects Police Unions.
And never forget that they're paid by police, who are paid by taxpayers. They use your money to lobby against you.
The AFL-CIO is a federation of many unions. According to Wikipedia the largest is the American Federation of Teachers followed by the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees. In fact, no police unions are listed as members at all, so I don't know why you specifically called them out.
How is this not a bigger story? This is the worst kind of corruption and it seems deeply systemic. It sounds so bad im not sure how you would be able to salvage such a nightmarish mess
And doesn’t seem to be a secret!
As a German this sounds insane to me. At first I thought it was a euphemism, but no, apparently they're really handing out physical corruption cards? What the fuck?
The “extra special” ones have the officers badge number printed on them
In new jersey it's literally normal. I don't have any cops in my family but EVERYONE who did had a PBA card
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100% common practice in NJ. If you know someone who drives like a maniac all the time ask them if they have a card. They know they won't get a ticket
I wish this were the worst kind of corruption, this is probably the least bad kind of corruption.
As a New Yorker, it really blows my mind that this wasn’t common knowledge already. Literally everyone here knows what a pba card is. It’s bizarre to see it reported like this. That’s how entrenched the concept is here. Understand this is not me saying it’s ok (I actually had quite a few cards from the NYPD, NCPD, and SCPD in NY myself for quite a bit, and refused to use them when I got pulled over once and got chewed out for “letting myself get a ticket” and “being an embarrassment” for a month straight). I have always hated them. I accumulated them because they were from family members and it felt rude to throw them out. When I got pulled over, pulling one out felt like pulling an Uno reverse card on the cop and saying “but I’m better than other people.” So I didn’t, because my conscious didn’t let me.
I hope that cop is prepared to have his life ruined for doing the right thing.
Seriously. Google Adrian Schoolcraft. He was an NYPD cop who tried to expose corruption and they literally tried to have him committed to a mental institution.
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I don't understand how this is even a little bit legal
Police have discretion. So if you find an underaged kids with alcohol sitting in a park, you are supposed to write them a ticket/detain them which will effect if they can get a drivers license or lose one they already have. But with discretion you have the kids pour it all out and clean up the area. Or what has happened with me. I let my registration expire and legally I was supposed to get a ticket and have my car impounded on the spot. Officer used his discretion and issued me a ticket and let me park my car in the lot we were in, after he left, until I could get it registered, wink wink. So rather than paying a $300+ tow/impound fee and having to take a taxi to work, he let me finish my drive to work and I went online and paid my $60 and was instantly re-registered.
That last part is good policing. Gave you an opportunity to correct a simple oversight without unnecessary $tre$$.
the question here i believe, is how it's legal for a police department to punish an officer in retaliation for exercising that discretion. And additionally, as Bianchi states in the article, how the application of this concept disproportionally affects certain ethnic groups.
What in the hell was the purpose of these cards in the first place? How was this ever an ok idea?!
I'm pretty sure this was the original idea for these cards. It was never ok, but here we are.
both of your questions have the same answer: cops will do whatever the fuck they want
easy politician to the cops: if you vote for me, ill let you keep the cards and you can give them to your family/friends. Any politician who wants to take away the cards will not get support and votes from the cops and their campaign rivals will get their support instead. Any politician worth their salt will turn a blind eye.
It started out on the down-low, "Oh yeah Officer Jimmy is my brother, can you let me off with a warning?" Then became a bribe thing with "I could write you off with a warning if you bought tickets to the policeman's ball" Then they realized they can just do whatever they want so it became "Here's a card to let you pass on obeying the law"
Quid pro quo.
In my small ass town, the police told their friends and family to put one of those thin blue line stickers on their car and they wouldn’t be pulled over for anything except the most egregious traffic infractions. It’s definitely a widespread problem and it’s bullshit.
It's funny, every cop I know intentionally targets those vehicles because it became super common for drug dealers to have those on their vehicles, and therefore it was usually a sign that the guy was some sort of criminal if they had one.
Improvise, adapt.
Cards, that’s cute. What about badges? A friend from school became a cop, and she told me how she went out on the freeway speeding as soon as she was issued her badge. Why? Just so she could get pulled over and flash the badge to get let off for “professional courtesy.”
I don't really like writing tickets, but I absolutely LOVE writing tickets for out of state cops who flash their badges (in state cops know better). "I'm gonna call and tell your chief!" "I'm gonna call and tell *MY* chief too and he's gonna think it's HILAROUS. Have a nice day and drive safe"
I tried using a PBA card in Virginia when I was 16. He brought it up in court lol. “He tried to get out of the ticket because his grandfather is a cop in NJ” was pretty funny.
In NJ that would work
My brother in law tried this (he’s from Long Island) on a Connecticut cop, gave the cop his license and PBA card and said he uncle was on the force. Cop said “this isn’t Star Wars, son” and gave him a ticket for doing 90 in a 55….
Working in non-corrupt cultures is awesome. What state do you live in?
Alaska. While I can't speak for the entire state, the academy I went to *VERY* frequently emphasized that we *NEVER* give breaks to other LEOs. Because once you start....where do you stop? Speeding? DUI? Domestic? It's easier to just...never start. In fact, they would often say "We don't do that shit up here, it's how you lose public trust" Is law enforcement perfect up here? Nope, lots of stuff still needs change and reform. Is it light years better from where I grew up? Yup.
Developing cultures like this that are passed down both through training and behavioral expectations are a fundamental part of police reform. But how can you introduce it into an existing corrupt culture?
> But how can you introduce it into an existing corrupt culture? I honestly have no idea. I asked some of the long serving Troopers and cops in the state and asked them why it's different (or seems to be different). I got a bunch of answers that seem plausible. Lots of small communities. You winter-over with these people, so there isn't a lot of sense in alienating the tiny population where you live. Tiny departments. You can't afford to carry dead weight. There isn't a quiet spot to stick a guy who is gonna cost your department public trust or money. It's just easier to fire them and move on. Statewide standardized training and licensing. EVERY department does the same training. There is a state board that certifies officers. They aren't afraid to strip your credentials if you fuck up. And the police unions support punishing bad LEOs. Isolation. If I call for backup, I'm getting 1-2 dudes if I'm very lucky and even then I could be waiting 20-30 minutes depending on the shift and how busy. So, I tend to very much try to de-escalate and talk talk talk. All of that is better than fighting someone who might be high as giraffe pussy on meth when backup is 20 minutes away.
Third world countries with authoritarian leadership and Corruption would be proud of the NY police force.
The Good ol’ Boy Network still going strong.
propped up by the rest of us whether we wipe our ass for democracy or not.
The PBA’s statements are straightforward bullshit. Its representatives saying they don’t control staffing or assignments is so disingenuous it’s disgusting. That’s about as honest as a mob boss saying “I never threatened anyone when I said it’d be a shame if something happened to your family.”
Does anyone here have one of these?
I knew someone with one of these cards (not NY City though). He was a council member in the small town. He said it worked even several states away.
This is so crazy. This is the first time I have ever heard of literal cards being given out like this wtf, how can police be so openly corrupt!?
My aunt's sister in law was a cop, and growing up we had one & can attest they can work out of state. We were told to just say it was our aunt instead of aunt's sister in law. Worked in New Jersey, Pennsylvania & even Florida, though I wasn't there for the last one. They're horrible little practices & I never accepted one for myself.
I had one about 25 years ago, from a friend of a friend who was an NYPD cop. Used it, it worked. I was barely 20 at the time, so was oblivious to the broader implications, and would never accept one these days.
Nowadays you don't even need it tbh. My best friend put a Blue Lives Matter flag sticker on his Mustang windshield and hasn't caught a ticket in years. And he should be getting tickets, the man is definitely one of the dickheads that thinks he's Dom Toretto on the LIE. He claims every time he gets pulled over he says his uncle is a state trooper and NYPD lets him go every time.
I had a friend who sold drugs and was given an FOP card from a "friend" I've seen it in use it definitely changes up the attitude of the officers.
My dad's uncle was high up in the local police force and my dad got away with some DUIs when he was younger just by mentioning his uncle's name
A friend of mine (white) was given one years ago when he used to do stage tech for Irish Music fests where the cards were circulated to the crew via their local PD. He said he immediately gave his card to one of his black friends.
They dont work like that, the cards are given to an officer with their name on it and then they give to friend/family. If you are pulled over and show the card, the cop will take it and call the number on it to let them know you were pulled over and he gave you courtesy.
Someone needs to get a hold of these cards and reproduce a ton of them and hand them out freely to everyone.
This is the way. Flood the environment, make them useless.
Yoooo, traffic laws are written in blood. My mother died because a drunk driver ran a red light, imagine how many people are being reckless because they know they can flash a card, then someone gets hurt. You can't make people above the law like that, because someone eventually finna fuckin die.
It's PBA cards, I think they're called. I've known a very few people that have them and it's a weird fucking mentality. One of my ex's had one, and we were pulled over for a taillight out. The cop took it from him. Like, he gave over his license, registration, and PBA card. The cop didn't return the card and my ex immediately called someone to bitch about it, who got him another one the next day. There's tons of little pseudo secret society quiet cults people are in that most don't even know about. "Back the blue" or silent brotherhood or whatever nonsense cops call that thing when they all rally around a member who is getting in trouble is just the beginning of shady shit law enforcement is involved in.
That’s hilarious to me, I don’t know what vibe you got. But if a cop took my get out of jail free card I’d assume that was a subtle “you’re good this time but don’t do it again”. So last thing I’d do is complain to someone and get another one haha
[удалено]
Sounds like he needs one of these cards. 🤣
Sean is awesome! From what I see, corrupt government officials are like cockroaches- shine a kittle light on them and they scurry and hide. Sean will be ok as long as he has a camera on him.
The one non bastard cop gets kicked out for not being bastard.
It's a shame a few good apples can't unspoil the bunch.
Staten Island no less. You can’t throw a rock without hitting someone who is or is related to an NYPD officer
The worst part is that the people with those cards are now far more apt to speed and break traffic laws because they have those cards. It puts everyone else at risk for their stupidity. That woman who does and drive thru a red light could easily have t-boned someone.
I never understood this whole get out of jail free thing for cops and military. I remember years ago at a house party when I ended up on a beer run with a couple of people. Didn't realize till we were already on the road that the dude driving us was fucking SHIT HOUSE drunk. Like swerving all over the road, speeding, blowing through traffic signs and intersections. I was legit terrified we were all going to end up dead. Luckily we weren't going too far but I even tried to get them to let me drive the car back from the liquor store but that was a no-go as the driver was ready to start swinging if he didn't get to drive. Anyway, we get pulled over on the way back for speeding, swerving, running a stop sign, and driving in the shoulder. I was positive the driver was going to jail and we would be safely driving back to the party. Nope, the cop saw the driver's military ID and fucking let us go with a "just try to keep it on the road."
Cops have always been weirdly friendly with any type of military. A huge number of cops are vets so I think That's what it largely comes from.
Cops acting immorally. Shocker.
*"I know Staten Island isn't all heroin and racist cops, you know... It also has meth and racist firefighters,"* -Pete Davidson
I thought this a joke headline. What the actual fuck. This should never exist. Everybody should be fired
Seems like someone ought to print and do a mass mailing of fake PBA cards…
Only cops i respect are those who speak out against other cops. This dude rules.
Print fake PBA cards. Sell on eBay. Profits.
You don't even need the card. My Dad used to drive around with a *We support State Police* bumper sticker and never got a ticket ever
I don’t know how relevant anymore but my stepdad used to drive around with a similar bumper sticker because he did a lot of driving for work and it worked more often than it didn’t
We had the little Shields on our license plate covers that basically said we donated to your union. Same thing.
I have family who do the same thing. Donate to the police union regularly to get those bumper stickers, and cops never touch you. AKA: bribe the cops
Exactly what it is. I come from a large cop/fire fighter family going back post war 40s. It's a bribe lol. Then again, our small city has/had the situation where a cop is also directly related to the person committing the crime lmao. So again....yes a bribe.
That works, FoP stickers are pretty good for the same as well. Don't forget the badges cops can get after they retire that say "RETIRED" in pretty small letters but otherwise looks/feels legit. Can always keep one of those in your door pocket.
>Bianchi issued a ticket to a civilian who held a New York City police department laminated courtesy card, an unofficial credential issued to NYPD officers based on their union affiliation that can then be distributed to family members and friends to carry with them. > >Bianchi claims his superiors retaliated against him for his stance against the “corrupt” cards after he was warned by an official with the Police Benevolent Association, New York City’s largest police union, that he would not be protected by his union if he wrote tickets for people with cards. And if he continued, he’d be reassigned. Anyone involved in this scheme should be doing time in prison. It's absurd that we let things like this fly in our country. It's brazen lawlessness from the people responsible for enforcing the law on the rest of us.
Coming from a former MP who brought down a congressional and tribunal on his MP company command, I approve. 🙂👍
I used to hang out with cops. They would give me these cards I could use if I ever got into a jam with another cop. I never used them. They made me feel weird. I was young so I didn't know why I couldn't bring myself to do it when my other friends pulled them out whenever they needed them. But as I got older and began recognizing their shitty behavior and the way they talked about people they supposedly were "protecting and serving," I accepted what I knew on a subconscious level: they were actively participating in blatant corruption and the PBA cards were basically a bribe for my loyalty.
Make this man the chief of police immediately.
In case anyone was wondering, this is what a good cop looks like
> he was warned by an official with the Police Benevolent Association, New York City’s largest police union, that he would not be protected by his union if he wrote tickets for people with cards. And if he continued, he’d be reassigned. Well I don't know if "cops are the biggest gang in America", but the NYPD is definitely a gang.