Opinion: NYPD’s ‘get out of jail free’ cards are real — and they’re wrong

The NYPD is running a protection racket.

I know this sounds like some sort of internet conspiracy theory, but it’s true.

Every year, each police officer in New York — including retired officers — is allowed to buy a certain number of special cards issued by the police union. The officers pay a nominal sum for these cards and then distribute them as they wish. Sometimes they give them to family and friends. Sometimes they exchange them for perks like meal discounts from local businesses. Sometimes they just sell them.

These police benevolent association “courtesy cards” are commonly referred to as “Get Out of Jail Free cards.” The idea is that when someone who has such a card is pulled over for a traffic violation or approached by the police in New York about some other minor offense, simply showing the card to the officer will get the offender off with nothing worse than a mild warning.

This may have been a common, though unheralded, practice decades ago. Certainly, there are any number of rumors and myths from across the country about how things like displaying a certain bumper sticker on your car will keep you from getting pulled over. But in New York, it’s a living tradition.

Worse, it’s a tradition that is ruthlessly enforced. Officers who insist on issuing tickets or citations to “courtesy card” holders will hear about it from their superiors and union officials. If they persist in enforcing the law without fear or favor, they can have their careers ruined or find themselves doing patrols on the night shift.

How do we know? Because that’s exactly what happened to one officer who refused to go along to get along.

Assigned to the traffic unit, Officer Mathew Bianchi originally followed his supervisor’s instruction to honor the cards and let anyone go who presented one during an enforcement stop. Eventually, however, Bianchi eventually began simply enforcing the law — and that’s where his troubles began .

Bianchi was repeatedly scolded by fellow officers and told by his union that the courtesy card system was customary and that it wouldn’t protect him unless he honored it. In addition to complaining to his supervisors, he filed formal complaints with his union and with internal affairs. The only action the NYPD took in response was to pull him off the day-shift traffic unit and re-assign him to a night-shift patrol unit.

Eventually, Bianchi filed a lawsuit in federal court, which the NYPD agreed to settle for $175,000, blandly claiming that “resolving this case was best for all parties.”

I’m sure it was. It was certainly better for the NYPD, as an actual trial would have been embarrassing beyond belief.

This practice seems to have been tolerated for no better reason than because it had always been that way. But traditional or not, the “courtesy card” system is rank corruption. That it is institutionalized corruption makes it worse, not better.

Imagine if it came out that district attorneys or judges in New York had a similar system where they refused to prosecute or punish their friends and families. Every single participant in a scheme like that would end up in prison.

No one would think it’s OK for a police officer to solicit bribes in exchange for looking the other way and not enforcing the law. It’s even worse when an officer can make a corrupt bargain on behalf of the entire New York Police Department. But that is exactly how the NYPD “courtesy card” system works.

To top it all off, it’s not even an informal arrangement. The NYPD has internal enforcers that ensure their fellow officers fall into line. One supervisor even asked Bianchi if it was “better to be right or better to be on patrol?” So we’ve got both corruption and extortion.

The only question is why the Department of Justice has not raided NYPD headquarters at One Police Plaza and arrested every member of the New York Police Department.

Well, OK, that’s not really realistic. And, to be fair, most officers are relatively passive participants, honoring the system because that’s what they’ve been trained to do. But just because it’s impractical to leave New York without a police force doesn’t mean something can’t be done.

The Department of Justice should launch an immediate investigation, with an eye toward obtaining a consent decree forcing the NYPD to eliminate the practice. Justice should let rank-and-file officers know that if they fully cooperate with the investigation, they will not be prosecuted. At the same time, the department should make it clear that it will be prosecuting officers who helped enforce the system, especially if they were responsible for retaliating against officers who tried to do the right thing.

But the Department of Justice has to do something. Now that this practice is a matter of public record, Attorney General Merrick Garland is complicit if he does nothing. Nothing is more corrosive to the rule of law than watching the federal government wink at organized corruption.

This case should offend everyone, regardless of politics. Ensuring fair, equitable and just policing is a complicated issue with many moving parts. Stopping cops from handing out “get-out-of-jail-free” cards is not.

Chris Truax is a charter member of the Society for the Rule of Law and an appellate attorney.

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