This BMW is CONSTANTLY parked in front of our building, directly obstructing the fire hydrant on the avenue side. Not a one-time occurrence--she continually parks there, day and night--I watched her park there this morning. Sometimes blocks the whole hydrant altogether. Leaves the car unattended, probably all day, and into the evening. NOT OK.

This Jeep has been making it a habit to park in Astoria, Queens just two feet away from a fire hydrant near my building practically all week. He also doesn't move on off-side parking days, so the street cleaner has to move around him. The street cleaner told my husband that he won't get a ticket, but we can complain to 311. There's an NYPD Bronx placard in the window. Perhaps they feel entitled to park there. They apparently never get tickets for off-side parking violations or for parking within two feet of a hydrant. When I call 311 to file a complaint, the Jeep disappears and then returns within a few hours to the same spot. Flagrant abuse of the privilege of being on the NYPD force and blatantly inconsiderate of the safety fellow NYC residents.

Woman in her 70's parked the vehicle about 4 ft from the hydrant and place a placard in the window with no permit#, Various plate? what? and some sort of a bs mini badge!!

This is a common violation. This individual consistently parks his car in front hydrants, this is the first time I had a camera with me.

Illegally parked on 65th Street @ 18th Avenue in Brooklyn, NY on 5/24/2011. They were parked for 20 minutes while making a run for coffee.

Joker parked in front of a fire hydrant with a DOT municipal parking permit (is that even real?) and a "PBA" badge and card. This car frequently parks at the hydrant.

[Moderator's Note: NYC DOT Municipal parking permits are real, but they are not valid for on-street parking (they are intended for use in City-owned parking lots/fields). Neither are PBA cards, of course!]

There's a parking scandal all over the news. Cops might be losing their jobs for fixing tickets. And this is how they're going to behave???

This has been going on outside the 13th Precinct and all around the Academy forever, but when is enough enough? Even with a scandal they think they can get away with breaking the law? Isn't blocking a fire hydrant, and the crosswalk, and leaving only 3 feet of the sidewalk all at the same time just going way too far?

I guess they don't have to fix tickets they never write. Do they think nobody is going to look at this? Do they really believe they're going to keep getting away with breaking the law?

I want my sidewalk back! I'm tired of seeing cops parked at fire hydrants!

Why isn't the New York Times writing about this? The real scandal is that cops are breaking the law in broad daylight, and they act like nobody can do anything about it. Is this a democracy? Do we have freedom of the press? What is going on here???

Forget what the Donald said about La Guardia Airport. These cops make New York look like a third world country!!!

It doesn't look like getting rid of the Deputy Inspector troubles by multiple scandals did anything to improve the integrity of the dishonest cops in the Dirty Five-Two.

Why is it so hard to find a few honest cops in New York City? Other cities actually have law enforcement officers that enforce the law instead of breaking it all day every day in public!

[moderator's note: this NYPD Restricted permit has two license plate numbers written in, which is also a no-no]

Remember how New York got crime under control? They applied the Broken Windows theory.

In 1990, William J. Bratton became head of the New York City Transit Police. Bratton described George L. Kelling as his "intellectual mentor", and implemented zero tolerance of fare-dodging. Police commissioner Howard Safir also adopted the strategy more widely in New York City in 1993, under the rubrics of "zero tolerance" and "quality of life".

What does the Broken Windows theory say?
If disorder goes unchecked, a vicious cycle begins. First, it kindles a fear of crime among residents, who respond by staying behind locked doors. Their involvement in the neighborhood declines; people begin to ignore rowdy and threatening behavior in public. They cease to exercise social regulation over little things like litter on the street, loitering strangers, or truant schoolchildren. When law-abiding eyes stop watching the streets, the social order breaks down and criminals move in.

And what does this have to do with the Dirty Five-Two?
THE COPS ARE THE ONES ACTUALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR MUCH OF THE DISORDER HERE. Instead of improving quality of life, they're cheating the law to give themselves special "privileges." Every time they do it, the undermine the moral authority of the law, and show that we may not be able to rely on all of our law enforcement officers to act honestly.

When they do this in broad daylight, it forces you to wonder what other dishonest things they're doing when they think nobody's looking.

And it all creates a culture of taking whatever you think you can get away with! The disorder is CAUSED by the Dirty Five-Two!

Public safety be damned

The Dirty Five-Two lets dirty cops park in illegally and very dangerous locations every day of the year.

Why would Christmas Eve be any different?

See picture - one more dirty cop putting everybody's life at risk by blocking a fire hydrant for his own, personal convenience. Apparently he couldn't be bothered to walk two blocks from Webster, where there are ALWAYS available parking spaces.

parked in front of a hydrant with somebody else's restricted placard. what a dope!

Another blocked fire hydrant.
Another dirty cop in the Dirty Five-Two.

Enough said.

This car with parks in front of my apartment building and a fire hydrant every single evening and into the next day.

At 9:15 pm, a private vehicle was observed parked 5 feet from a fire hydrant, using an NYPD placard from a different precinct to avoid being ticketed. (Reminder, the LAW requires 15 feet from a fire hydrant.)

This fact was called into 311, with complete details to identify the vehicle (make/model/license plate...). At 10:38 pm, the precinct closed out the complaint, stating: "The Police Department responded and upon arrival those responsible for the condition were gone."

But they weren't gone. The vehicle was observed in the exact same location at midnight.

Then it was observed again, STILL there at 7:50 am. At this point, it was joined by another illegally parked private vehicle. This second vehicle did not have a placard. It was ticketed, even while the vehicle ILLEGALLY using the NYPD placard to park ILLEGALLY was STILL not ticketed.

The Dirty Five-Two came to this location TWICE, observed an ILLEGALLY parked vehicle, and REFUSED to take the action their job requires. THIS IS THE JOB WE PAY THEM TO PERFORM!

This double standard is unethical. It is illegal. And it is SHOCKING, since this precinct is ALREADY UNDER INVESTIGATION for screwing around with parking tickets!

When you're under investigation for doing something wrong, and you decide to keep doing it wrong, you can't blame anybody for the consequences. These guys can have no complaint when they are finally HELD ACCOUNTABLE.

Even with a permit, you're not allowed to block a fire hydrant. The whole side of the street is No Standing, and of course it's full of cars with NYPD permits.

Wow!

Sometimes I think they have a competition going on up here to see who can violate the most laws in public or something.

This is a private vehicle (with some really lame specialty plates) using a Restricted placard from an entirely different borough. Somehow, he managed to park illegally at the hydrant AND in the crosswalk, simultaneously.

No vehicle of an honest, tax-paying citizen would be spared from either of these violations with our ticket-happy NYPD. They just don't like to follow the law they enforce on everyone else.

So, as always, the Dirty Five-Two did not write a ticket. We'll just have to wait for IAB to catch up to him.

Waste of our tax money, though. We have to pay an honest cop in IAB to do the work that another dirty cop at the local precinct was already paid to do!

There it is... if you want to complain about your taxes, here is a clear example of how the NYPD steals your money!

And there is absolutely no excuse for this insulting laziness. This was clearly not official business of any type - there was no police activity on the block, nor is this near any precinct.

Not that it matters, but it wasn't even late when this vehicle parked (it wasn't there when I walked by earlier, so it parked between 6 and 9:30 pm). I passed other LEGAL spaces that were available only 2-3 blocks away on Mosholu Parkway.

These dirty cops just like to show off that they *think* they don't have to follow the law. Do they think they look cool stealing our money, and spending it on fancy cars that they leave at illegal and dangerous locations they view as their personal parking spaces?

Of course, they are not above the law. They'll have to learn the hard way when IAB tracks down their supervisors.

The Dirty Five-Two is still letting their buddies block fire hydrants, putting the lives of neighborhood residents at risk.

They are not protecting our community. They're just using our neighborhood as their personal parking lot, even when it puts us in danger.

This personal vehicle was using a restricted placard from another precinct on a residential street where there was clearly no "official business." Observed at 1:15 am, there were still 2 available parking spaces on Mosholu Parkway too - the individual who blocked this hydrant broke the law as a matter of sheer laziness. There is no excuse.

Fire the criminals, before somebody dies in a fire!

this person has no problem using the fire hydrant for their personal parking space every night. unless sleeping counts as work, this guy needs to stop.