With its full-throated defense of the NYPD's Muslim surveillance programs and the way it cheered the department's violent crackdowns on Occupy Wall Street protesters, you might say the New York Post is cozily nestled in a certain blue pocket. But today's Post carries a shocking revelation: they can be critical of the cops...about parking. Former police commissioner William Bratton possesses an NYPD parking pass that allows him to dodge the law while on "official business."
The Post observed Bratton, who returned to NYC after a stint heading the LAPD, parking his Lexus SUV in a "No Standing" zone outside the Midtown office of the Kroll security firm he now runs. The car was there an hour, which would normally earn anyone who wasn't a former police commissioner a $115 ticket. His parking placard read "for official use only" and doesn't expire until 2013. "City employees can only use them when they're on the clock," Noah Budnick, the deputy director at Transportation Alternatives says. For Bratton to use it is "doubly illegal."
Naturally, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne claimed that no laws were being broken: "Former police commissioners are entitled to placards." That's news to former commissioner Lee Brown, as he doesn't possess one. And luckily the current police commissioner's wife gets a detective to drive her around. Anyway, we're looking forward to the Post's headline, "Parking Placard Up, Down, Off Bratton's Window, Like A Hooker's Drawers."
