March (Parking) Madness: The Queens Borough Final is No Contest
Today, we finish the borough finals round and finally pare this month-long
slog through police misconductcontest down to the Final Four. On Wednesday, we kicked off the Hateful Eight with The Bronx final, which was won by the 43rd Precinct in a nail biter! And on Thursday, the 75th Precinct predictably won the Brooklyn borough final. Polls just closed in our Manhattan borough final, which was one by the Manhattan South Precinct (see updated bracket below). And we’ll accept votes on this Queens battle until 11:59:59 on Tuesday night. So vote.
In the years that we have been doing this contest, we have seen some truly repulsive Queens precincts, such as the 114th in Astoria, which won the 2021 edition, or the 110th Precinct in Elmhurst, where cops have stolen every inch of public and private space.
The two precincts hoping to represent Queens in the Final Four of the 2023 contest are nowhere in the category of loathsomeness that has made the borough famous. But both distinguish themselves for treating their neighbors poorly.
So which one should advance to the Final Four? You get to choose, so remember to vote at the bottom of this post:
102nd Precinct (Richmond Hill)
You gotta tip your hat to the selfishness of many cops. Even when given a huge parking lot, and walking distance proximity to both the J and the A trains, cops at the 102nd Precinct house on 118th Street in Richmond Hill still steal sidewalk space to combat-park their personal vehicles in such a disrespectful way that they even block neighbors’ doorways!
Check out this slideshow. Those are police officers vehicles blocking residents’ homes, their exhaust pipes pointing like service revolvers at people’s front doors:
But maybe photos don’t tell the full story. Here’s what a person trying to get home on 118th Street experiences just to get to the front door:
Imagine being someone who gets around in a wheelchair, or a parent pushing a stroller, and having Captain Jeremy Kivlin’s cops as your neighbors. This is what you’ll face — even the very entrance to the 1913 station house is blocked by car butts:
It’s also pretty offensive when members of the NYPD break the law by defacing their plates, as this guy did — not that it helped him that much (the car has been nabbed for a red light or speeding ticket at least once a year.
But will it be enough to get the 102nd into the Eastern Finals against the eventual Brooklyn winner loser? Let’s find out.
101st Precinct (Far Rockaway)
Everything looks pretty good on the Mott Avenue side of this station house, but the problems appear when you look a little closer. This place is just trash:
Naturally, there are whole areas of the neighborhood that have been commandeered by cops to store their personal vehicles. Here’s a row of police officers who chose to leave their cars in a no-parking zone:
And this guy who is blocking a curb cut on the block has 23 camera-issued speeding tickets (eight since mid-2021), according to records posted by the city he allegedly serves.
Meanwhile, in a neighboring cop-only zone, we found a sergeant who had not only folded his front plate to avoid camera detection, but also installed bright lights that he can turn on whenever he’s passing a camera (either it’s working, or he’s a that remarkably rare cop who never gets a speeding ticket because records show he’s never been caught on camera).
It’s a wonder why Captain Timothy Schultz puts up with officers like that — especially since the car parked in the commanding officer’s spot has never been nabbed for any ticket at all, neither parking nor camera-issued violations.
So in the end, it seems clear to us, but you get to vote. Polls are open until Tuesday at 11:59:59 p.m.
[poll id=”169″]
