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Cop Who Ignored 'Courtesy Cards' Awarded $175K

NYPD officer says half the drivers he stopped had police union-issued 'get out of jail free' cards
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 12, 2024 12:31 PM CDT
Cop Who Ignored 'Courtesy Cards' Awarded $175K
New York City Police Department officer Mathew Bianchi holds a Police Benevolent Association "courtesy card" in this July 2023 photo.   (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File)

A New York City police officer who took a stand against reckless drivers using the "courtesy cards"—aka "get out of jail free cards"—handed out by police unions has been awarded $175,000 in a lawsuit against the city. Mathew Bianchi says that when he was in a traffic unit in Staten Island, around half the drivers he pulled over produced one of the cards, which officers hand out to family and friends to get them out of low-level encounters with police, the Washington Post reports. He says officers can buy 30 cards a year for $1 each—and they sometimes exchange them for things like meal discounts. In the lawsuit, he said he was retaliated against after he started issuing tickets to people with the cards.

In the lawsuit, Bianchi, who joined the force in 2015, said that when he started ticketing cardholders, union officials warned that he wouldn't be protected if he continued, the New York Times reports. He said that after he issued a ticket to a woman who turned out to be a friend of Jeffrey Maddrey, now the department's highest-ranking uniformed officer, he was transferred out of the traffic unit within days and demoted to night shift patrol duty.

  • In the lawsuit, he said the courtesy card system, which he complained about to his supervisors, the union, and the NYPD, allows people to "break the law with impunity." He tells the Post that one cardholding driver laughed after he stopped her for the second time in two days for talking on her phone while driving. Another driver stopped for doing 50 in a 30-mph zone fanned out dozens of courtesy cards and told him to pick one.
  • The settlement doesn't address the card system, and Bianchi says he's worried changes won't happen until a reckless driver who has repeatedly escaped punishment kills somebody. "I was hoping that bringing light to it would change it a little bit more, but people on that job are stubborn," he tells the Post.

  • In his complaint, Bianchi noted that white drivers in Staten Island "are significantly more likely to have courtesy cards than minority drivers," and under the ticketing quota system, "police officers are forced to disproportionately ticket minority drivers," the Guardian reports.
  • Bianchi is still an NYPD officer and still on patrol duty, though he is now back on day shifts. He says he's been told he has no hope of returning to the traffic unit. "I've literally applied for just about everything since I've been put back, and they've denied me for everything," he tells NBC New York. "They're not very secretive as to why, and I've had supervisors tell me why I can't go anywhere."
  • He says he doesn't regret filing the lawsuit. "I'm glad I didn't take the punishment and the retaliation lying down. I'm glad that I did something." He says he still feels the card system is "a form of corruption" and he's not going to change his approach. "I'm still going to go out there and I'm going to do exactly what I feel is right," he says.
(More NYPD stories.)

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