Maybe the Five - Two is out fighting real crimes.

Interesting. I've had a different experience with the MTA Police. I had been working on a campaign to get them from parking their private vehicles on a stretch of sidewalk (along with invalid MTA placards). Of course the local NYPD precinct was worse than useless in this matter. However, after contacting the MTA Inspector General, within a couple weeks the whole area was cleaned up. It's been months now and there still is no illegal parking in that area!

I'm sorry, dragonman, but that simply is not the case. And, clearly, you haven't given much thought to how the police actually "fight" crimes.

They found out that the guy using the stolen placard had stolen OTHER things too. They failed to "fight" the REAL crime of PARKING ILLEGALLY in a place that puts us at risk, the REAL crime of STEALING POLICE CREDENTIALS, and the REAL crime of IMPERSONATING AN OFFICER. Had they bothered to fight ANY of those OBVIOUS crimes, they would ALSO have ended up fighting the OTHER real crimes they would have discovered when they collared the guy.

Unfortunately, despite tips from the community, and despite driving every day past a placard that was obviously being used improperly and obviously had not even been validated, the Dirty Five-Two simply failed to do their job.

Look, it's no secret that very often the police CATCH MAJOR CRIMINALS when they stop people for smaller offenses. That's because a lot of people who break the law, tend to break lots of different types of laws.

And sometimes when the police stop people for petty crimes, they DETER them from escalating to major crimes. Again, there's no mystery here. When people learn they're going to get caught, they're less likely to try something riskier.

The "major crimes" get all the attention, but we need HONEST cops who will do REAL police work. That involves DETERRING crime, instead of spending all their time chasing people after they've ALREADY COMMITTED a major crime.

You might think the Dirty Five-Two is out "fighting real crimes," but instead what we see them doing day in and day out is sitting around in the car texting somebody, not watching what's going on out on the street, waiting to respond to a call about a "major crime."

During that time they're ALLOWING the "petty" crimes that they're ignoring right outside their window to open up space for the major crimes to happen. And they're subjecting our community to all the ills of every "petty" crime they ignore.

I'm sorry, but they simply are not being paid to sit and ignore "petty" crimes. They're getting paid to ENFORCE THE LAW, not to spend their time texting their girlfriends, and certainly not to give their dirty cop buddies a free pass when they commit "petty" crimes in our community!

But let's get the facts of THIS instance completely straight, shall we?

Any way you look at it, the Dirty Five-Two just didn't get the job done. Somebody else had to make a special trip up here to THEIR precinct to catch this criminal, because they consistently FAILED to get it done themselves.

So please, just do us all a favor, and stop making excuses for dishonest cops that refuse to do the job their paid to do. There's no possible excuse for this type of corruption, and trying to invent one is simply embarrassing for everyone.

Nicely put norwood!

Your just jealous you don't have a placard. You probably don't drive either so you have no clue what it is to get home at 3 in the morning and try looking for a spot. So do us all a favor and stop crying about it.

Nurses know what it's like to get home at 3 am. So do doormen, building cleaning staff, lots of construction workers, and every other worker of a late shift (including myself just a few years ago). We all obey the law, or pay the consequences.

There is no excuse for a cop breaking the law. Crying about it being so hard to find a legal spot late at night certainly would not be a valid excuse.

But you're just making up nonsense again, anyway. This guy didn't park here at 3 am. He parked here before I came by at 8:00 pm, while there were plenty of LEGAL parking spaces available only a block or two away.

And besides, there is ALWAYS parking available on Webster Avenue, which is only a few blocks over, and less than a FIVE MINUTE WALK.

By the way, you don't see me "crying." I'm taking action, and getting results.

The only people crying are the people getting caught, who really don't like the results of their own actions.

The only reason you are trying to do something about it is because you don't have a placard.

Hah! So funny. I don't have a car, but I'm jealous of those who have placards and break the law, so I desperately want a placard to use.. in my non-existent car.. so I try to bust people who have placards... oh, wait, damn, now I'm SO confused. What was I supposed to be jealous of again? Placard perps? Or dumb commenters?

Is that really the way you view the world? I only care about crime in my community because I can't get away with it too?

I guess that really clarifies a lot about your sense of pride and responsibility as a citizen!

You two are just jealous. I can park where I want to and you can't. That's the bottom line. Nothing you can do about it.

Ha! Guess it's the latter.