Overzealous Traffic Cops Make A Name In New York City

While American police are getting a deservedly bad reputation for militaristic tactics, perceived racism, and general stupidity, one branch of law enforcement often overlooked are the traffic cops.

A Record Setter

19,000 parking tickets. NINETEEN-THOUSAND. In one-year. That means New York City’s top traffic cop slings a summons every nine minutes and 45 seconds.

Arnous Morin, 53, wrote 19,000 parking tickets in 2015, an average of 76 each working day. The records, analyzed by the American Automobile Association Northeast shows Morin beat the city’s #2 traffic cop by more than 4,000 tickets.

Morin’s ticketing frenzy more than covered his annual salary. Morin, whose base pay is $36,000 generated revenue for the city worth more than $1 million. Morin, a former Catholic-school administrator in his native Haiti, doesn’t apologize.

“Never. Never. It’s never alright to violate the law,” Moron told a reporter. “The law is tough, but it’s the law.”

Morin starts his workday at seven in the morning and works the surface streets of Sunset Park, Park Slope, Bay Ridge and the famous Coney Island.

“I have the entirety of Brooklyn South,” he said.

Morin doesn’t know when to turn-work-off. “I’m a traffic cop in my genes. Even on holiday, I see infractions,” he said.

Morin understands the city law giving a five-minute grace, but that’s it. “You have to show respect,” he said. “If the driver is there, I urge them to depart first.”

When time runs out, Morin and his pen don’t understand clemency.

A New York Solution

City officials have begun intentionally grinding Midtown traffic to a stop with the purpose of making drivers miserable enough they leave their cars and home and turn to mass transit.

“The traffic is being managed,” said a former top NYPD officer. “The streets are engineered to produce congestion and slow traffic.”

According to the former-officer who asked to remain anonymous, pedestrian plazas have eliminated complete lanes of traffic to create choke points. Guarded bike paths on the main avenues eat up a lane and push trucks to double park.

An additional advantage was assumed to be safer roads. Plans didn’t work out, and city officials report that although 45,000 less vehicles go into Midtown each day than in 2010, pedestrian deaths are rising.

Astoria Residents Complain

Even the staid and stuffy residents of Astoria are complaining. Fed up with neighborhood traffic cops who hand out tickets to parked cars in one of the borough’s prime shopping and dining meccas, residents are speaking out.

“The has become the #1 concern among my constituents,” said Peter Vallone a City Councilman. “The city needs to enforce the law to free up parking spaces, but it needs to be done rationally. ”

Vallone said the area outside his office at 31st Street was one of the worst in the neighborhood for getting tickets, but he is receiving complaints from everywhere in his district.

“I’ve seen traffic cops trail someone who pulled out of a space and cut them off like they were a SWAT team,” Vallone added.