OH, TOW YOU DIDN’T
Cops hauled away cars so they could park near NYPD flag football game
Angry upper Manhattan residents accused the NYPD of unsportsmanlike conduct for towing their cars to free up parking for the department’s flag football championship.
The alleged offensive interference with the local motor vehicles came in the hours before Sunday’s NYPD flag football championship contest at Columbia University’s Baker Field.
Police, citing traffic concerns and accessibility for the disabled, towed 30 cars on W. 218th St. between Broadway and Indian Road prior to the law enforcement Super Bowl pitting the Bronx’s 40th Precinct against Midtown South.
But one Inwood resident said most of the newly created spaces on the west side of Broadway were instead filled by cops going to the game.
“There were mostly civilian cars with placards on their dashboards or notes about the flag football game,” said local man David Thom, 44. “This was removal of cars for personal vehicle parking for officers.”
While the cars were relocated rather than ticketed or taken to a tow pound, it still outraged some locals who emerged to find the police had called an audible on their parking spaces.
“How can they do that?” said Anna Dominguez, 52, who lives in the area but was not towed. “You think you’re gonna leave your car here Sunday and everything is gonna be fine — and then you come back and it’s gone. Just because the NYPD wanted space for a game? They’re taking advantage of their power.”
Some cops left the notes in the cars to explain why they were illegally parked in crosswalks, in front of hydrants or in no parking zones.
“NYPD football player inside,” read the handwritten notice left in a car. Another officer’s off-duty car, with a police placard in the windshield, was parked on a sidewalk.
A Facebook page for Inwood residents was heavy with sarcasm and rife with anger over the blindside hits on their cars.
“Wouldn’t want them to have to pay like mere mortals,” mused one local resident.
Chimed in another: “Bullying behavior to muscle lawful local residents off the street for their ‘private’ event. This was not a security issue, i.e., if (the) President were there.”
Some residents had moved their cars in advance after seeing temporary noparking signs, which the NYPD said were first posted four days before Sunday’s title game.
“During the day of the
event, 30 cars were relocated,” said NYPD spokeswoman Sgt. Jessica McRorie. “The event … was open to the public.”
Mayor de Blasio recently vowed a crackdown on placard abuse. But NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill said Tuesday there was no abuse in this case.
“This was a special event,” O’Neill said. “This was the flag football championship. The cars were relocated. Nobody was towed and nobody got a ticket.”
O’Neill did suggest that the neighborhood’s 34th Precinct could have done a better job getting word out about the towing. “But there are special events all throughout the city, every day,” O’Neill added.
The NYPD noted that parking was created for more than a dozen annual parades held on Fifth Ave., and spaces were recently set aside for the media during Brooklyn Federal Court deliberations by the jury in the Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman prosecution.
One Facebook critic said O’Neill’s defense failed to mention the signs were left up for hours after the game was over, indicating cars would still be towed at 6:30 p.m. Sunday.
Columbia University teams play home games at the venerable facility, opened for the 1923 season.
A source confirmed what the Inwood locals said: Columbia does not ask the NYPD to clear off any streets when the school hosts a game at the venue.
“They’re not allowed to touch the street parking,” said Thom. “All they do is create a few spaces on Broadway for shuttle buses.”
The NYPD is home to teams in a variety of sports: Baseball, hockey, football and basketball, among others. Boxing matches known as “smokers” are common, with cops settling their grudges in the ring.
The NYPD and FDNY hockey teams square off in a charity game at Madison Square Garden, an intense contest chronicled in the documentary “Rivalry City.”
But Inwood resident Garrett Broad, 32, felt it wasn’t very sporting of the cops to move the cars for their own convenience.
“It was a remarkably inconsiderate move given the parking crunch in the neighborhood and the availability of lots in the area for them to park,” he said, “especially on the eve of a snowstorm.”
Fellow neighborhood resident Jonathan Laurel, 38, said the cops didn’t deserve a flag for what happened.
“So what — your car got moved over a bit,” he said. “Just move it back later. People just want to complain because it’s the police.”