What in the world is wrong with the NYPD?
Entrapment—pure and simple.
A police force that resorts to this sort of activity has too many officers. Personnel cuts are in order here.
Guess NYC is so thoroughly cleaned up that the cops have to create crimes. It’s a miracle!
There must be a great deal that's bogus about this story. I find it hard to believe there are any cops in the US that are this stupid. In fact, it sounds more like a sting operation to identify stupid cops.
I'd like to know what the real story is.
He urinated in public so I wouldn’t want the wallet back.
The guy did exactly what I’d have done.
I would not have left the wallet for some thief.
Regardless of who’s telling the whole truth, the message I get is that if I’m in New York and I see a wallet on the ground, I should avoid touching it.
This is interesting. I think I ran across a similar scenario at the Philadelphia airport recently.
We got back from a flight and I was waiting outside for my husband to bring the luggage out. There was a nice looking backpack sitting all by itself on a bench. I asked the lady next to me if it was hers, she said,’No’. I said to her, looks like a seriously unattended backpack to me. I immediately went to talk to the cop who was directing traffic in front of the baggage pickup. I got his attention, and told him that there was an unattended backpack on the bench. He told me he knew about it and it was ok.
I went back to the original lady and asked her if she knew when an unattended backpack becomes a suspicious backpack.
20 minutes later as we were leaving on the shuttle bus to the parking lot, the backpack was still there.
The guy has 10 days to find owner or turn it in by law. Police in wormy apple don’t know the law?
Sounds to me like they were fishing for people w/ outstanding warrants—not that this makes it OK by any stretch.
Ditto.
This is the relevant section. If the guy has an outstanding warrant, they book him. If he doesn't, and is an occasional criminal, he now knows that the cops are keeping an eye out for people like him. If he's innocent, he gets a few looks from other passengers, nothing more. The fact is that he could have turned this in at a token booth, which is a two minute walk away from most subway platforms.
This is a complete abuse of power, not to mention contrary to civil law. Personal property law says possession gives the possessor better title, in the eyes of the law, than anyone except the actual owner.
It is not theft to pick up lost or abandoned property. Whatever attorney approved this entrapment scam should have his/her license to practice revoked until they receive a passing grade in a personal property law course.
The individual in this story should be suing the NYPD for false arrest.
You are right on target! I couldn’t believe how stupid this ‘sting operation’ was! Are honest people now required to ignore any lost items lying on the ground? And just who the hell is the NYPD to decide what good citizens should do with lost items? Frankly, citizens would be wiser to put an ad in the paper than to turn the item in to the NYPD, especially if it’s money.
He picked it up and put it in his bag, with every intention of later finding its owner,
The road to hell (or jail) is paved with good intentions.
welcome to the world of COMPSTAT. the brass and the lawyers sit in rooms thinking of operations like this in order to get felony arrests. this happens a ton! not just subway. bars, nightclubs, stores, etc...
“What in the world is wrong with the NYPD”?
As I remember New York, suprisingly, ranked among the highest of honest cities. Over all, the survey proved that Americans are, by in large, very honest folk.
This NYC Police Sting is beyond the pale!
“What in the world is wrong with the NYPD?”
I think the question should be, what in God’s name is happening to the police in our country?
I used to respect law enforcement until I was arrested at my house over a year ago for supposedly sending bomb threats to an airport.
You would not believe the idiotic assumptions, lies and fabricated evidence used to obtain the search warrant.
In their attempts to get me to confess, they even threatened to shoot my dog.
Of course nothing was found and the charges were dropped after about a couple of weeks, but the damage to my reputation was already done.
What’s most amazing is how stupid these cops were - how easy it was to find and obtain evidence that exposes their perjury and belligerent attitude.
A lawsuit has been filed!