NYPD Parking Abuse Scandal Widens

12:40 PM EDT on September 7, 2006

Chinatown businessman Jan Lee was cuffed and detained for
photographing police officers' illegally parked cars in front of his shop.

Despite threatening late night calls to his home phone from a Brooklyn police officer (who forgot to block his phone number from appearing on caller ID), CBS Channel 2's Brendan Keefe continues his series of hard-hitting investigative reports on the widening government employee parking abuse scandal. In one of yesterday's two stories, Keefe asks, "Why don't ticket writers issue violations to illegally parked city employees?" The answer: "It's not just professional courtesy. It's fear."

Keefe interviews a City DOT parking agent who was suspended without pay for putting a summons on the windshield of an illegally parked NYPD police chief; a Chinatown businessman who was cuffed and dragged off to police headquarters for snapping photos of illegally parked cops hogging up the spaces in front of his shop; and two advocacy group volunteers who were detained and told that the Patriot Act prevents them from taking photos of police officers' illegally parked cars. City Hall declines to comment.

All three of Keefe's most recent "Selective Enforcement" stories are online and very much worth a watch. This appears to be a story that goes beyond illegal parking and into the realm of post-9/11 police power and civil rights:

Fear of the NYPD Often Aids Illegal Parking 9/6/06
Cops Administering Retribution 9/6/06
Court Officers Manufacturing Fake Parking Placards 9/5/06

Aaron Naparstek

AARON NAPARSTEK is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparsteks journalism, advocacy and community organizing work has been instrumental in growing the bicycle network, removing motor vehicles from parks, and developing new public plazas, car-free streets and life-saving traffic-calming measures across all five boroughs. Naparstek is the author of "Honku: The Zen Antidote for Road Rage" (Villard, 2003), a book of humorous haiku poetry inspired by the endless motorist sociopathy observed from his apartment window. Prior to launching Streetsblog, Naparstek worked as an interactive media producer, pioneering some of the Web's first music web sites, online communities, live webcasts and social networking services. Naparstek is currently in Cambridge with his wife and two young sons where he is enjoying a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. He has a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Naparstek is a co-founder of the Park Slope Neighbors community group and the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. You can find more of his work here: http://www.naparstek.com.

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