In this segment from last year, CBS News reported on Jose Rodriguez, a tow truck operator arrested and charged with a felony while legally reposessing an NYPD detective's car. The owner hadn't made his car payments in months and the bank had issued a legal reposession order, but this deadbeat detective refused to let it go. According to CBS, he first attempted to illegally pay off the tow truck driver, then called over uniformed officers to have him taken to jail when he refused to take the cash. The cops also tampered with recording devices in the tow truck, but the stream was uploaded to the cloud and one officer's mugshot was captured by the camera.
The segment is going viral today without context, as they do, and in this case there's a less unhappy ending, at least for the tow truck driver: most of the charges against him were dropped after CBS News covered his case, leaving a single misdemeanor on the sheet. But after the detective sought Rodriguez out privately and harassed him in the street — at least according to Rodriguez — that charge was dropped too.
That detective makes at least $100k a year, can't afford payments on a $35k Nissan, yet has the cash on hand to bribe a tow guy and the desperation to have him arrested? Impunity is one thing, but this cop has another smell about him entirely.
