By Nathan Duke
The city Police Department has started tracking all parking and traffic tickets issued by police officers through scanners at precincts across the five boroughs in a bid to stop ticket fixing.
The change in policy is meant to prevent officers from tossing out tickets for friends and family members, a source familiar with the NYPD said. Previously, an officer could intercept a ticket before it reached the courts, the source said.
But now the NYPD’s scanners will enable the department’s headquarters at 1 Police Plaza in Manhattan and each precinct to get a copy of a ticket electronically, making it more difficult for a ticket to be thrown out, the source said.
The initiative was put into effect July 22, a Police Department spokesman said.
“All commands that issue summonses have received scanners to correlate them,” the spokesman said. “It’s in operation.”
A spokesman for Bayside’s 111th Precinct said the scanners would provide greater organization for tickets written throughout the city.
“It’s a more organized way to streamline them,” said Officer Gary Poggiali, spokesman for the precinct. “It’s a better way of keeping things accountable. It keeps track of what comes in and what goes out.”
The scanners would be applied to all tickets handed out for parking and moving violations.
Under the department’s old system, officers would drop copies of the tickets they had written in their precinct’s summons box. The summons would then be sent to the courts.
The NYPD’s new system also entails handing out a book of 25 blank tickets that have been pre-scanned by computer, linking each summons to a specific officer, the New York Post reported.
Each year, city police officers hand out more than one million summonses, which generate money for the city.
Reach reporter Nathan Duke by e-mail at nduke@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4566.
