Mathew Bianchi took routine traffic stops seriously and handed out tickets regardless of people’s connections within the Police Department. He says he was punished for it.
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The police unions distribute the wallet-sized courtesy cards — sometimes referred to as “get out of jail free” cards — to members, who in turn pass them out to friends and family. Bianchi had been instructed to let card carriers off without a ticket.
By the time he pulled over the Mazda in November 2018, drivers were handing Bianchi these cards six or seven times a day. But this woman’s card was a little older, a little tattered-looking. It was difficult to make out the contact information of the officer who had given it to her, which is usually written on the card’s back. So Bianchi did the wrong thing, which is to say, the right thing: He wrote the woman a ticket.
Though Bianchi didn’t know it then, he had just begun what would become a yearslong struggle to do the job the way he thought it should be done. He had inherited his moral obligations — and a strong dose of stubbornness — from his grandmother, who raised him on Staten Island. But he had no family in the Police Department, and no one who could tell him what to do when its leadership began to turn against him.
The month after he stopped the Mazda, a high-ranking police union official, Albert Acierno, got in touch. He told Bianchi that the cards were inviolable. He then delivered what Bianchi came to think of as the “brother speech,” saying that cops are brothers and must help each other out. That the cards were symbols of the bonds between the police and their extended family and friends.
Even that doesnt “hack” the system, because it’s nebulous and has paper thin rules. The only requirement is that it loosely IDs an “ingroup” not bound by the law like the “outgroup.”
They can change the cards at any time to defeat the hack. They can change it to a hand signal and a card. As long as its informal and not written down or explicitly acknowledged, it can be anything.
They can also just opt not to apply it even if you have the “right” card if you are perceived to be in the “outgroup,” i.e black/brown, or in an old beater, or or or…
Okay, ideally this just wouldn’t be a thing at all. I’m proceeding on the assumption that it’s going to be a thing.
Giving everyone one of these cards is still a big leg up, though. It throws chaos into the nice little club these police have set up. It means that everybody knows about it, and it means that the cops never know for sure who’s actually “in” and who’s “out.” Even if they issue new ones constantly, making things cat and mouse, it means the “in” group needs to constantly be updating their cards. Anyone on the “in” group could still find themselves in a situation where they’ve slipped up and are presenting an old card, at which point they need to argue with the cop to convince him. If they fail, they get ticketed. And then the infighting ensues, just like in the case this article’s about.
Turn this secret club into an open battle.