Detective Patrick Cherry, a member of the elite Joint Terrorism Task Force, will not be fired over his notorious scene with a New York cabbie who honked at him for attempting to park on the West Side Highway without signaling. The tirade was captured by a sympathetic passenger of the Uber driver and posted on YouTube. The video is below. The police has said that the use of the car’s lights and sirens — and the abusive yelling at the cabbie — is not a firing offense.
On the video, Cherry not only berates the driver and questions how long he has been in the United States. Cherry later said that he was mad because the driver swerved around him, flipped him the bird, and mouthed “f— you.”
The passenger who recorded the video, Sanjay Seth, can be heard saying that it was not the drives fault and offering to share the video with him. He is expected to speak with investigators at the Civilian Complaint Review Board this week. However, the police have said that the most that Cherry will face will be a mark on his record and the loss of pay and vacation days.
Notably, Cherry has been previously the subject of about 10 complaints during his 15 years on the force, often for verbally abusing civilians.
Frankly, I am not sure that the detective would warrant termination in such a case, but I would like to hear more about the possible pattern of such conduct. Moreover, I am a bit disturbed about the portrayal of the incident as an officer becoming verbally abusive. Cherry used his siren and car to hold the civilian for what seems a personal matter.
What do you think?
Source: DNA
Give him anger management training. I don’t see this as firing offense at all. BTW, the guy should smarten up and realize he’s on candid camera.
I think this video shows a raging patriot as a blowhard.
Also, we routinely let law enforcemet officers kill civilians without as much as an indictment. Do we really expect more than just a wag of the finger in other cases that don’t involve death??
This video is simply the rule of law we support right now. Vast and essentially unfettered power for our elites and those that protect them.
Was the cop ever in the Marines? He comes off like a drill instructor in basic training. Or perhaps he attended a Catholic school run by Jesuits.
TinEar – Jesuits would not have ticketed her for the first violation. The Benedictines pile it on.
These guys need anger management training. Cherry attended funeral prior to pull over and got emotional. I understand.
Worked with CID at FT. Bragg, NC. These guys do get emotional. The fix is anger management. Be professional, diplomatic, and don’t lose your cool.
Reblogged this on The World Around Us.
Flipping the bird at a cop in an unmarked car is not the same as flipping the bird at a cop who is obviously a cop. There is here provocative behavior that should be addressed. The Uber driver should understand, Asian/Indian/? flipping the bird, just might equal an over reaction. The next guy he flips the bird at might do him serious damage. That would be wrong but it is never stupid to know where you are.
The cop is, in this scene alone, out of control and not performing rationally. Police officers that unleash pent up frustration are not equipped to be face to face with the public. Given that he has 10 instances relating to his lack of control the best place for him is down in the basement operating the evidence room. He is a time bomb out in public.
What if he had pulled over one of the people on this blog? Whew.
My experience w/ Uber and Lyft has been all positive, opposed to my cab experiences. Govt. officials hate Uber and lyft because they don’t get the kickbacks they do from cab companies.
Most people would get fired from their job if they acted like that, and especially if it became news and thus embarrassed their employer. Given their authority to arrest and use deadly force, police should be held to a higher standard of courtesy and professionalism. I think he should be fired and find some other line of work more suitable for his temperament.
“Cherry has been previously the subject of about 10 complaints during his 15 years on the force” This sums it up nicely. This cop is trouble and he is being protected. It worn’t be long and he will cause the city $millions in a law suite.
Paul – almost every cop will be subject to complaint. If Jesus was doing traffic stops there would be complaints. 😉
I’m trying to think of any other job for which this behavior isn’t a firing offense.
Good, behind a desk without a gun is where he belongs.
“Notably, Cherry has been previously the subject of about 10 complaints during his 15 years on the force, often for verbally abusing civilians.”
“How Police Unions and Arbitrators Keep Abusive Cops on the Street”
“Officers fired for misconduct often appeal the decision and get reinstated by obscure judges in secretive proceedings.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/how-police-unions-keep-abusive-cops-on-the-street/383258/
“These are just a small selection of cases drawn from recent headlines. Yet they alone illustrate why reform is so important. Would you want your town policed by these men?
Society entrusts police officers with awesome power. The stakes could not be higher when they abuse it: Innocents are killed, wrongly imprisoned, beaten, harassed—and as knowledge of such abuses spreads, respect for the rule of law wanes. If police officers were at-will employees (as I’ve been at every job I’ve ever held), none of the cops mentioned above would now be walking the streets with badges and loaded guns. Perhaps one or two of them deserved to be exonerated, despite how bad their cases look. Does the benefit of being scrupulously fair to those individuals justify the cost of having more abusive cops on the street?
I’d rather see 10 wrongful terminations than one person wrongfully shot and killed. Because good police officers and bad police officers pay the same union dues and are equally entitled to labor representation, police unions have pushed for arbitration procedures that skew in the opposite direction. Why have we let them? If at-will employment, the standard that would best protect the public, is not currently possible, arbitration proceedings should at a minimum be transparent and fully reviewable so that miscarriages of justice are known when they happen. With full facts, the public would favor at-will employment eventually.”
In many cases there were no criminal charges or they were found not guilty, and that is the reason the fired cops got their jobs back. I would be opposed to punishing a cop after a jury decided that the cop did not commit a crime. There are many other ways to police the police and that means the DAs have to do it first along with the cops themselves.
In the airlines where we have unions, the union has a professional standards committee, which is charged with talking to a pilot if there is some safety or other concern regarding a pilots actions while on the job. This is a way for pilots to take their concerns about other pilots without management becoming involved. Obviously, if there is an egregious offense, the airline will take action as well as the FAA and in most such cases, the pilot loses his job. I don’t know if police unions have such a committee, but this would be a good way to instill some respect for them and to head off troubled officers before they make the newspapers. Absent this, the cops will start losing all public support and they will become nothing but another armed gang.
The cop is a menace to society, they did the right thing to get him OFF the street!
The thing is that they actually tried to defend his actions, so unless there is a LOT of pressure to do something about abusive cops, they probably don’t do anything.
You would think that cops would start to be more cautious considering the number who have been caught on camera. I am not sure that this is a firing offence, but it sure is a get in you grill yelling offence.
While I agree that this does not warrant termination, from his past history, it seems like he needs to be kept on desk duty until he retires. He is a danger to the public and to the image of the NYPD.
That the video went viral, is a great lesson to everyone to carry a hidden video camera at all times, and a great lesson to those in power, that they are being watched at all times. (recall the Romney 47% video). It has never been sufficient to tell people that god is watching them. Today cameras really are watching them.
The driver is lucky he wasn’t dragged from the car, beaten, tased and shot for daring to be immediately subordinate to our rulers.
Are cops all taking steroids or cocaine now or something?
Uncontrolled rage.
Has the passenger been arrested yet for filming the cop?
(The update in my previous comment is a quote.)
UPDATE: Officer Cherry “was stripped of his badge and gun, placed on desk duty and is being transferred from an elite New York Police Department unit,” NYC Police Commissioner William Bratton said Wednesday.
(http://boingboing.net/2015/04/01/watch-high-ranking-nypd-detec.html)
Good. Cherry is an arrogant bully.