I'm agreeing with JCJ here. What this off-duty cop did has nothing to do with the City or the Police department. Had this cop been chasing a perp while off-duty that would be a different issue but he was just driving home after a party and made a terrible decision. A decision which ultimately cost him his life. I don’t see why the City is responsible for it.

Furthermore, I wouldn't ride with somebody who I think is driving drunk even if he told me he's god.

Sketto,

Yes, the NYPD has a lot of drunk driving accidents, but guess what? 35,000+ employees on a stressful job, of course there are going to be some accidents involving alcohol off-duty.

When Gothamist will have 35,000 reporters, I bet you'll be hearing about a lot of fatal drunk driving accidents involving Gothamist reporters, don’t you think?

And no, I’m not a cop. Read my prior posts and you’ll figure that out.

I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know if NYPD is legally responsible for the actions of off-duty officers, but I only need to read the news to see that one particular organization has a lot of drunken accidents - the NYPD! So I'm thinking that maybe somebody somewhere of some serious rank in the NYPD oughta maybe, um, look into this and, I don't know, maybe show us civilians that the force isn't completely out of fucking control.

It's not unique to NYPD. Prevalent alcohol use among police officers in the U.S. is pretty well documented. Some studies put alcohol abuse by cops at a level twice that of the general population nationwide.

It's not unique to cops, just cops make the headlines, other people in other professions being arrested does not.

How many people say "trust me, I'm fine to drive." His job has NOTHING to do with that.

These passenger's who survived, they're all adults. They've all seen people who have had too much to drink before. They made their own decision. I'm not saying the driver is blameless, but the passengers aren't blameless either that they were riding in the vehicle.

weren't they at a party with many cops or a party that was in honor of a cop? too many cops in the cop soup here.

If you get into a vehicle being driven by someone under the influence you may get into an accident. The city of NY is not responsible for this tragedy. Sue the offending officer's car insurance company, not the NYPD.

The police weren't on duty so there was no obligation to "serve and protect". The lawyer just wants to sue the City. Guess what idiot, just because someone who works for the City does something bad doesn't mean the taxpayers need to pick up the bill.

The guy used his status as an officer as a reason they should trust him to drive, so yes, he gave himself the responsibility to "serve and protect."

Once again, for the slow people in the audience, just because a police office says something or does something bad (here the bad act is convincing some people to ride with him) doesn't mean the City is responsible.

For example, what if the cops weren't drunk and (i) told the girls they were off duty cops and could give them a ride home and (ii) then raped and killed them. Under your logic the City would be on the hook because they said they were cops. Clearly not the correct answer.

I never said anything about my feelings about the City being responsible. You said that there was no duty to "serve and protect," and I disagree with that.

wait, I thought cops were always "on-duty"?

isn't that why they always have their gun with them?

anyway, guess what? if you're not a cop, they don't give 2 shitz about you. even cop lovers will not get any special treatment for the fact that they're not cops and therefore don't know 2 shitz about the "job".

"wait, I thought cops were always "on-duty"?

isn't that why they always have their gun with them?"

No, they're not. And no, they don't.

They always have the power to act as police officers, but have no responsibility to take any law enforcement actions while off-duty. And, they can carry a gun while off-duty, but aren't required to. In my experience, most don't.

I'm not sure about that. I was told by a friend in the NYPD that he is always supposed to be able to act as a cop, 24-7-365. He is always on call. That said when he drinks he leaves his weapon at home.

The patrol guide says that they should generally be armed, but while off-duty have discretion not to be under certain circumstances, including when there's a risk that the weapon could be lost of stolen or when there's a possibility that the officer might consume alcohol.

Old school guys pretty much would always carry, and likely still do. Gung-ho new guys who were buffs before going into the academy generally do -- though some may not want to risk getting into any kind of incident that will bring attention to them during their probationary period.

And a lot of guys these days stick to that thinking -- that the department will jam them up enough if they use a gun while on the job, they don't want to take a chance of being scrutinized for using it off-duty. So taking that discretionary option has become pretty common. A lot of cops today will tell you honestly that their thinking is that the best thing to do if they see something while off-duty is to call 911. And if for some reason they're later asked, say they left the gun at home because they were going to the gym, or were going to have a couple of beers with dinner.

OK, I give you that JCJ,

but why do they (they being NYPD) mostly complain about their job? sounds like they have a great job?

If they don't like said job, they can quit. do we have any stats on the turnover rate at the NYPD?

the not carrying the gun with you 24/7 must be a recent development. I recall the dept may frown upon cops not carrying off-duty, probably because of the veterans used to carry.

The cause of the crash was determined despite NYPD's efforts to obscure the facts. From top to bottom, the NYPD does not care about the citizens of New York.

Guess that CPR marketing bullshit they have painted on their cars isn't working out so well.