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[City of New York] Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association boss Pat Lynch slashed the maximum number of cards that could be issued to current cops from 30 to 20, and to retirees from 20 to 10, sources told The Post.
The cards are often used to wiggle out of minor trouble such as speeding tickets, the theory being that presenting one suggests you know someone in the NYPD.
The rank and file is livid.
“They are treating active members like s–t, and retired members even worse than s–t,” griped an NYPD cop who retired on disability. “All the cops I spoke to were . . . very disappointed they couldn’t hand them out as Christmas gifts.”
Source: NYPost
The cards, issued for various states and agencies -- such as the DEA -- are available for purchase on eBay for around $100.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday January 23 2018, @04:27PM
OK so they seem to look like some kind of every plastic creditcard, helps being wallet sized and all. It seems kind of nondescript really, hard to say since the image doesn't show the backside.
But for these cards to have some kind of purpose you sort of have to have at least two fields on the backside -- one that identify the person it was given to and one that identify the officer handing it out; so that you know who vouches for who. Also if the card is used it should be taken by the officer in charge and handed back to the PBA and then back to the issuing officer so he can have a talk with the offender before possibly giving it back to them. Also so that the officer in question could be contacted when the card is used.
Otherwise these seem quite pointless, or potentially a "lucrative" job perk -- I don't know how much a NYPD officer makes but if he got 30 of these a year and according to the NYPost article the price for a card was $200 bucks that is 6k a year if you sell them all. Considering the NYPD has about 40k active officers, plus countless retired once that is a serious amount of cards out and about floating around -- about enough to cover about 10% of the population of NYC (only counting active officers at 30 cards a piece). That can hardly have been the point of them.