Nobody likes seeing their car getting towed but usually there’s nothing you can do about it unless you’re a New York City police officer and can do what the hell you want.
In this case, the tow truck driver ended up in jail for 20 hours on a felony charge of possession of stolen property after trying to repossess a Nissan Maxima from an NYPD officer who had missed three payments.
Tow truck driver Jose Rodriguez was also unable to work for two weeks because the cops refused to remove a boot they had placed on it when arresting him.
The cop whose car was getting repossessed called his cop buddies who showed up after Rodriguez had already lifted the car onto his truck. They surrounded him and handcuffed him, then they removed the car from the truck and drove it away while taking him to jail.
But by the sounds of it, they were the ones who were stealing the car because it had already been repossessed by the bank but they are protected by Blue Privilege.
According to Spectrum News:
He said he logged the Maxima into his tracking system, lifted it onto his tow truck and was about to walk into the station house to notify police when a green pickup pulled in front of him.
“I was stopped by one officer over there, saying, ‘Hey, that’s a police officer’s car,’ with a police sergeant that was off-duty that I didn’t know — with him completely blocking me in. He told me, what I’m doing? ‘You got to drop the car,'” Rodriguez recalled, standing near the scene of the incident.
Rodriguez said the Nissan’s owner showed up, offering to make his back payments.
But the repo man said he told them it wasn’t that easy: once a car is on the tow truck and logged in, it’s the bank’s property.
The felony charge of possession of stolen property against Rodriguez was reduced to a misdemeanor charges of falsifying documents and possession of police scanners, allegations he denies.
But the NYPD still has not returned his phone, laptop, iPad and cameras, including one that snapped a photo of a cop tampering with it, sending it to his cloud posted below.
NYPD said they began investigating after “a male victim stated to police that an unlicensed tow truck was in possession of his vehicle without authorization” without acknowledging the “victim” was a cop.
