The newest scandal about to erupt across New York is ticket fixing.  Seriously, ticket fixing.  The allegations are that a couple dozen officers have been fixing tickets for friends and family.  As if this comes as a surprise, particularly given that tickets are discretionary in the first place. 

From the New York Times.

While the law enforcement official and several lawyers involved in the matter called the wrongdoing relatively minor, the case could have serious implications for the department because of the large number of officers thought to have participated, either by asking for a ticket to be fixed or by doing the actual fixing.

And the accusations will most likely anger countless New Yorkers, some of whom see the specter of quotas behind summonses they receive and whose response to a ticket is generally more straightforward — pay the fine and have points added to their driver’s license.

It’s not that any corruption, even little league stuff like this, is acceptable.  We have every right to expect New York’s bluest to behave themselves, even if they have the ability to make tickets disappear to Aunt Matilda won’t get points on her license.  And getting a free cup of joe and a donut is wrong too.  It really is.

But as scandals go, this one shocks only for it’s triviality in the face of ongoing, systemic problems.  If you’re unfamiliar with these, read Radley Balko, who keeps a running log.  Even the times can’t get too worked up over this.

It is a practice that by all accounts has been around almost as long as the traffic laws: fixing a traffic ticket.

In the annals of small-bore corruption, there are few things more commonplace than a police officer’s making a ticket disappear for a friend or relative. Yet now this curb-level cronyism is threatening to erupt into a New York Police Department scandal.

The cynic might call this a diversionary tactic, something to take our mind and eyes off more serious issues while getting the sense that the police and Bronx DA Rob Johnson are working very hard to clean up their own backyard.  And indeed, it may well be, given how the talk is about grand jury testimony, union officials being integrally involved in this widespread conspiracy.  If somebody is fixing tickets, let the cops pinch them and prosecution them.  It can’t be all that hard to tell when a ticket is written and disappears in the age of computers, not to mention numbered tickets.

Then, of course, there’s professional courtesy, where cops don’t ticket other cops. No mention of any grand jury testimony about drunk cops running down pedestrians getting a free pass.  That must be beyond the scope of the investigation.  They wouldnt want to dilute a decent scandal by tossing in something really serious.

Tom Puccio, defending one of the PBA cops, offered this defense;

“The practice has been in existence probably since the first ticket was issued by the Police Department,” he said. “It cannot be condoned, but on the other hand, it should not be prosecuted.”

How trivial can something be when the argument against it that cops have always been corrupt.  So what? 

Puccio is, of course, absolutely wrong.  Police corruption, at any level, is both wrong and a threat to the integrity of their job.  Given the power and authority placed in their hands, the idea that they can screw with the rules, any rules, emboldens their violation of rules and the harm that follows.  Corruption is a big deal, even if the cops have always been corrupt. 

The problem that goes unspoken here is that there are massive problems, from the stop and frisk program that violates the constitutional rights of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers every year, to the the abuse of power, physical harm and lies used to justify it and cover it up.  That these big, no huge, problems go unnoticed while the scandal over ticket fixing hits the fan, is what makes this scandal laughable.

There’s much to fix.  Tickets included, but let’s try to fix some of the big stuff before we worry too much about the little stuff.