During a New York City Council hearing last year, the NYPD addressed claims over the abuse of police placards displayed on a civilian car’s dashboard, indicating that the owners are police officers or emergency personnel looking to avoid getting a ticket.

The police asserted it was a very minor problem of infrequent occurrence. Little did they know that a skeptical audience member was watching with every intention of holding them accountable, going on to create a Twitter page wholly dedicated to tracking abuse of police placards.

Since early 2016, the “Placard Corruption” page has almost 5,000 followers and 6,000 tweets. Its feed is laden with photos that exhibit NYPD placards displayed on a civilian car so owners can skirt traffic laws, creating a double standard by law enforcement sworn to uphold the law. These infractions, sent directly to the NYPD’s official Twitter handle, include blocking fire hydrants, parking on sidewalks, blocking crosswalks, and parking on alternate side days.

On top of parking infractions, Placard Corruption is known to also take offense to illegal plastic covers on license plates, which can be seen head on, but not at an angle, making it tougher for enforcement cameras to identify the registered owner. These covers are illegal in New York State. And though Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill allegedly took a public stance against them, a picture was posted on the Placard Corruption site showing a covered license plate in the parking lot of the NYPD headquarters.

“The only people with these covers are police officers because if a regular civilian does it, there are [Traffic Enforcement Officers] walking around every day and if they do it, they get a citation.” says the creator of Placard Corruption, who asked to remain anonymous due to threats from purported police officers. “The NYPD

won’t let people do their job when it comes to people who work for the department.”

The network of Placard Corruption users has noticed particularly egregious examples of these transgressions within the 52nd Precinct borders, which cover Norwood, Bedford Park, Kingsbridge Heights, Fordham, and University Heights.

“Let’s say a car is parked in front of a fire hydrant. They’ll get the complaint, they’ll go into their system, they’ll put it in a response that is untrue. Let’s say it’s a blocked fire hydrant for example. They’ll go in and they’ll say that they responded and they didn’t see any evidence of the parking violation,” the founder says. “We’ll have one of our people go back afterwards and there it’ll be clear as day. No one could have missed it and they’ll take pictures and they’ll post it up…”

“Where does it stop?” Placard Corruption’s creator asks, “Do these guys start fudging the truth whenever they want to put somebody behind bars as well? It really starts to erode the trust.”

A request to the NYPD for comment was made, but remained pending as of press time.

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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.