ROAD BATTLE
A TRAFFIC STOP turned into a bitter war of words after a Queens firefighter accused a cop of disrespecting him in front of his son when he pulled him over for riding on a highway shoulder.
Jonathan Logan, a lieutenant assigned to the Fire Department’s 46th Battalion, was riding his Harley-Davidson on the jampacked Belt Parkway with his 8-year-old son in the back on Friday.
It was the boy’s first motorcycle ride, so Logan, 39, was riding on the side to avoid being rear-ended on the busy stretch.
But within moments, he was stopped by Officer Mark Gaiardelli, who flashed his lights and pulled him over.
Logan had mounted a camera on the bike to capture his son’s first ride. But the camera ended up recording the clash, which Logan later posted on YouTube.
When Gaiardelli asked why Logan was riding the shoulder, he replied, “Just trying to make sure I’m not in the, you know, in the line of traffic with my son, that’s all.”
“It’s not a HOV lane,” Gaiardelli responded, standing off camera.
About 30 seconds into the recording, Logan asked, “Are you OK? It seems like you’re a little upset right now.”
“I’m not upset, because you’re playing dumb with me,” the officer said.
Then the encounter veered into another direction.
“Excuse me, sir,” said Logan, a father of three who is married to a police officer. “I’m here with my son. And I would appreciate you giving me a little bit of respect, OK?”
“Well, don’t play dumb with me, then,” Gaiardelli replied.
In the video, Gaiardelli denies calling Logan “dumb,” and said he was saying not to “play dumb with me.” There’s a difference, he maintained.
Gaiardelli wound up calling his supervisor at Logan’s insistence.
The YouTube clip ends with Logan comforting his crying child.
But the full, roughly 27-minute recording continued as both patrol supervisor Sgt. Elizabeth Mero and Logan’s wife, along with their two daughters, arrived.
Logan ended up with tickets for riding on the shoulder and for having a dirty license plate and an expired inspection tag.
The plan had been to ride over to Logan’s parents’ home in South Ozone Park. Instead, father and son went to the 113th Precinct stationhouse to file a notice with the Civilian Complaint Review Board. They finished the night playing the video for an Internal detective.
Days later, Logan was fuming.
“This guy felt empowered to speak to me like I was some hoodlum. It was just a bad situation that went sideways,” Logan told the Daily News. He says he’ll fight the tickets. “These are not isolated incidents. This happens hundreds of times every day within the confines of New York City. When police officers speak to people like this it must be exposed,” said Logan, who’s a member of Queens Community Board 13 and vice president of the Cambria Heights Civic Association.
Logan was stopped just blocks from where he grew up, and he said there’s still a ways to go with “neighborhood policing.”
“It’s still an us vs. them mentality. If I look a certain way, then I’m a problem. This is the conversation we need to have.”
Gaiardelli, 42, and the Police Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Affairs Bureau still