The NYPD’s Placard Problem

Publicly, the NYPD is telling us it can’t identify and discipline the two Internal Affairs officers who allegedly visited a gadfly at home to push him to stop exposing cops’ abuse of parking placards, unless the victim comes forward with a complaint.

Hope the brass are on the case behind the scenes, because this sure looks like an abuse of police power for the lowest of ends.

Since Mayor de Blasio in his unwisdom has put the issue of placard abuse front-and-center in the public mind, waiting out the storm won’t work.

It’s bad enough that, as Saturday’s Post reported, de Blasio’s new placard-enforcement unit is phoning in warnings to station houses before it comes in for a sweep.

That won’t fly in the modern age — not when other New Yorkers are likely to join the person behind the @placardabuse Twitter handle in documenting cops’ illegal parking.

But it’s far worse the anonymous gadfly says he was visited in February by two supposed Internal Affairs Bureau officers with the unspoken but unsubtle message, We know where you live.

The visit may have been prompted by a complaint submitted to the city Conflicts of Interest Board, and it’s theoretically possible that civilians were posing as IAB cops. But it still reeks.

With news like this, the department won’t have much luck being unhelpful about how many police officers, vs. teachers and so on, have been ticketed for placard abuse.

“The point of the [new ticketing] program is to enforce good behavior by cracking down on anyone abusing their privilege,” says mayoral spokeswoman Freddi Goldstein.

“Anyone” has to include cops: For all they do to keep this city safe, the police can’t be above the law. And the IAB’s mission is to hold officers to account — not to illegally threaten civilians.