It was their way or the highway.<\/p>\n
Top NYPD brass misused the department\u2019s internal-affairs bureaucracy and doled out \u201chighway therapy\u201d to grind down a mid-career officer for the crime of ticketing city employees for parking violations and for failing to recognize then-Assistant Police Commissioner Kaz Daughtry, according to court papers<\/a>.<\/p>\n Plaintiff Mark Schwartz, a 15-year veteran of New York\u2019s Finest, sued Daughtry, former Chief of Department John Chell and another top NYPD official late last year in a filing that lays out an apparently coordinated effort among Daughtry and Chell to intimidate and menace him for minor issues while using cars as both a pretext and a tool for punishment.<\/p>\n Schwartz is seeking unspecified monetary damages for \u201cpain, suffering, emotional distress, loss of dignity, humiliation, and damages to reputation and livelihood.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s sad, really,\u201d said Schwartz\u2019s lawyer John Scola. \u201cIt\u2019s just someone who\u2019s trying to do his job, and then, because he didn\u2019t basically bow down to the egos of Chell and Kaz, his whole life gets uprooted and he has to endure years of hardship, because these people essentially have a bruised ego.\u201d<\/p>\n Schwartz joined the NYPD in 2010 and worked at precincts in northeastern Queens for more than a decade. On Sept. 6, 2023, his lawsuit alleges, he was working at the 109th Precinct in Flushing when Daughtry entered the building through its back door and became angry that Schwartz did not recognize him and thus did not \u201ccall attention\u201d to Daughtry\u2019s presence with a salute.<\/p>\n Daughtry, \u201cnoticeably angry,\u201d then exited, leaving Schwartz confused. When a sergeant told him, \u201cThat\u2019s Kaz,\u201d Schwartz simply replied, \u201cWhat the fuck is a Kaz?\u201d Daughtry had only been named assistant commissioner weeks earlier.<\/p>\n \u2018Highway therapy\u2019<\/p>\n Three days after Schwartz did not recognize Daughtry, according to court papers, he received a drunken late-night call from Chell, who asked Schwartz where he lived and whether he had a problem with Daughtry. The court papers described Chell as \u201cnoticeably intoxicated and angry.\u201d<\/p>\n Immediately after that call, according to the lawsuit, Chell phoned the 120th Precinct on Staten Island\u2019s North Shore. It is unclear what Chell said on the call \u2014 the lawsuit provides no details \u2014 but Schwartz was transferred to the 120th.<\/p>\n The long distance from Queens was not a coincidence. The transfer imposed \u201cthe greatest commuting burden of any available tour, at times, resulting in an unbearable two-hour-plus commute each way,\u201d the lawsuit states.\u00a0<\/p>\n In other words, Chell had prescribed Schwartz a heavy dose of \u201chighway therapy\u201d \u2014 an unofficial punishment chosen by NYPD officials to deal with disfavored cops, the lawsuit alleges, calling the maneuver \u201ca common retaliatory tactic in the NYPD\u201d that police officials inflict on rank-and-file officers to create \u201can arduous, and often expensive commute (due to tolls and gasoline usage), with the intent of causing the transferred member frustration and ample time to reflect on their infraction.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLife\u2019s basically a living hell,\u201d Scola told Streetsblog.<\/p>\n Staten Island blues<\/p>\n Schwartz soon ran into more trouble on Staten Island. According to the lawsuit, NYPD personnel at the 120th precinct shut him out of crucial software and subjected him to extreme administrative scrutiny, while Chell and Daughtry allegedly misused the department\u2019s internal-affairs bureaucracy to intimidate and harass him on bogus accusations of racism.<\/p>\n \u201cI would let you rot in Staten Island,\u201d Chell allegedly told Schwartz during an internal affairs interview.<\/p>\n After Schwartz sought help from his union, the Lieutenants Benevolent Association, he was reminded that Daughtry \u201dheld a position of exceptional influence within the NYPD and had direct, high-level access to [former Mayor Eric Adams], making retaliation against officers who displeased him both swift and unreviewed,\u201d the lawsuit states.<\/p>\n Schwartz again ran afoul of NYPD brass in late 2023, after he wrote tickets for several illegally parked cars on Hamilton Avenue in Staten Island. The road had a history of parking complaints, but Schwartz\u2019s boss at the 120th Precinct apparently considered the offending cars off-limits because they belonged to teachers at a nearby school.<\/p>\n As a consequence, Schwartz was allegedly stripped of his patrol duties and placed in a windowless office with no responsibilities, assignments, or subordinate staff. He was \u201cfunctionally sidelined\u201d at his new assignment, the lawsuit claims. <\/p>\n Looking for a way out, Schwartz sought a different, \u201cless desirable,\u201d assignment that offered overtime. But court papers claim that NYPD Chief of Transit Joseph Gulotta, the other top brass named in the suit, ensured Schwartz did not receive that opportunity.<\/p>\n Denied promotion<\/p>\n Several months later, the lawsuit alleges, the NYPD summoned Schwartz to a promotion board to consider his advancement to the rank of captain. According to the lawsuit, one of the board\u2019s members was Chell, who opposed Schwartz\u2019s promotion and successfully pressured the other two board members to vote against it.<\/p>\n During that board meeting, the lawsuit claims, Chell \u201cemit[ted] a loud and dismissive exhalation.\u201d He also \u201cspecifically [made] a comment about [Schwartz] writing the tickets at the school and [made] it known that he will not be promoted due to the lawful police action [Schwartz] took.\u201d At one point, Chell \u201c[lost] emotional control and [became] verbally abusive, calling [Schwartz] \u2018stupid.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c[Chell] definitely prevented the promotion of my client, because [Schwartz] issued tickets to teachers in Staten Island who were parked on the sidewalk after he spoke with the principal and asked them to move, and they refused,\u201d Scola said. \u201cHe did what he\u2019s supposed to. He ticketed those lawbreakers and then Chell used that to justify him not getting promoted.\u201d<\/p>\n Schwartz\u2019s lawsuit is not the first time that Daughtry and Chell\u2019s behavior drew attention of watchdogs. The city\u2019s police oversight agency repeatedly found that Daughtry engaged in misconduct<\/a>, and Chell faced numerous investigations by the NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau, including for tax evasion<\/a>. A jury previously determined that Chell, then a cop, \u201cintentionally discharged\u201d his gun in a 2008 incident, killing Ortanzso Bovell and forcing the NYPD to pay out $2.5 million<\/a> in 2017 to Bovell\u2019s family.<\/p>\n NYPD\u2019s mysterious policy<\/p>\n Schwartz\u2019s lawsuit adds new evidence that the NYPD has politicized traffic enforcement. In March, Chell himself said<\/a> on X that a \u201cstanding order for decades\u201d has instructed police officers not to issue tickets to teachers, doctors, nurses and employees of \u201cother city agencies.\u201d When he was the NYPD Chief of Department, he said he added to that list \u201cfriends\u201d of right-wing radio host Sid Rosenberg. (The NYPD denied<\/a> Chell\u2019s assertion.)<\/p>\n Schwartz is now a captain working in Manhattan, but thinks he should\u2019ve received this promotion much sooner. The lawsuit also alleges he was denied cash overtime and faced other workplace challenges due to the retaliation.<\/p>\n Scola said that the lawsuit \u201csheds light on the selective enforcement of laws and the arbitrariness of how the NYPD polices.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c[Schwartz] lost that promotion, he would be at a higher rate of pay now, he\u2019d be in a different place in his career, all because he didn\u2019t get the memo that the NYPD had selective enforcement for, whether it\u2019s Sid Rosenberg\u2019s listeners or city workers or whoever it may be that\u2019s basically connected to the executives in the NYPD,\u201d Scola said. \u201cIt\u2019s not fair.\u201d<\/p>\n Scola is hopeful that a new mayoral administration will settle the suit and that the NYPD will \u201cclean up their act,\u201d but he\u2019s not holding his breath.\u00a0<\/p>\n