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Did Police Take A Jailed Man's Mercedes On A Reckless Joyride?
By
John Del Signore
Published Sep 4, 2012
Modified Sep 4, 2012
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By
John Del Signore
Published Sep 4, 2012
Modified Sep 4, 2012
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Sometimes there's a story in the pages of the NY Post that is so ludicrous we have to believe it's true. 25-year-old college student Rashad Lewis claims that after he was arrested while driving in front of Bloomingdale's on August 3rd, police pulled him over for running red lights and arrested him after allegedly finding 13 bogus credit cards inside his Mercedes convertible. The vehicle was impounded, but while Lewis was behind bars, a certain someone drove it out of a police impound lot in Queens and took it for a joyride. Lewis knows this because after he got out of jail he got another red light ticket issued during the time he was in custody.
“My back window was broken, my driver’s-side door was keyed, and my bumper was scratched up,” Lewis tells the Post. “They were driving my car with the windows down and having a ball joy riding my vehicle." NYPD records obtained by the tabloid show police vouchered Lewis’ Mercedes-Benz in “good” condition at 1:23 a.m. on Aug. 4th. But the ticket Lewis later received in the mail showed a traffic camera photo of his car running a red light on 12th Avenue and West 34th Street at 2:12 p.m. on the 4th. Lewis was jailed at the time.
The traffic light camera pic doesn't show the driver's face, and it's unclear if the car was being driven by an NYPD officer or an NYPD employee at the impound lot. But Lewis has no intention of paying the ticket, and he says, "I’m scared to drive around in that car. I don’t know if they put a bug or something in it." At least it's now got that "new cop smell"?
Tagged
cops
joyride
nypd
queens
Rashad Lewis
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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