SIDEWALK COP ZOOM
Vid comes amid case of driver using walk to pass school bus
An NYPD squad car idled on a Brooklyn sidewalk in a bizarre “Smokey and the Bandit” style traffic trap before speeding after a motorist seen ignoring a stop sign, a startling video posted on Facebook shows.
The video comes as police arrested a civilian who was recorded driving on the sidewalk to avoid an idling school bus, officials said.
The video, posted on the This is NYC Facebook page on Saturday, shows the NYPD SUV sitting on the sidewalk along the side of a corner building in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
As a car rolls past a nearby stop sign without stopping, cops inside the squad car speed off the sidewalk and begin pursuit, startling a woman standing just a few feet from the SUV.
Once it rolls onto the street, the cops hit the lights and pull the traffic violator over a block away.
“This NYPD officer dangerously violates traffic laws just to enforce traffic laws, how ironic is that?” the post reads. “(This) Officer is parked up against the building on the sidewalk illegally, putting that pedestrian you see pinned up against the wall & other pedestrians in Danger.”
An email to the NYPD regarding this incident was not immediately returned.
Meanwhile, cops on Wednesday arrested Brooklyn motorist Samuel Itzkowitz, 23, after he was caught on a surveillance camera driving on the sidewalk in front of a Borough Park school with small children just a few feet away.
He vaulted the sidewalk to get around an idling bus blocking traffic, a video of the incident shows. No one was injured.
Itzkowitz surrendered to authorities and was charged with four counts of reckless endangerment, reckless driving, failure to stop for a school bus and driving a motor vehicle on the sidewalk. He was released from custody after getting a desk appearance ticket.
He will face the charges in court at a later date, officials said.
NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea hailed the arrest on Twitter.
“Driving on the sidewalk to avoid a stopped school bus is every kind of wrong,” Shea wrote. “Thankfully, no one was hurt and the driver has been found and arrested for Reckless Endangerment & other charges. Great work by the @NYPD66Pct Detective Squad. #FullStop.”
As of Wednesday, the video of the cops on This is NYC has been viewed more than 90,000 times and shared 348 times.
While most commentators on the post found no fault with the cops’ tactics, others felt the officers were violating the law.
“People are missing the point,” Linda Artis wrote. “It’s illegal for them to park on the sidewalk unless it’s an emergency. A traffic violation is not an emergency.
“City agencies think traffic laws don’t apply to them, but they do,” she said. “It’s not just cops, sanitation, ambulances, even mail trucks do this.”