Second Safest City Blog

Bryce LaPlaca, a 22 year old resident of South Nyack, pleaded guilty yesterday to falsely reporting that he was stabbed and to selling cocaine.  According to the Journal News, LaPlaca was arrested in November when he had his stepfather call police to report that two men had stabbed and robbed him near the corner of Lake Rd and Route 303.  Responding officer John Mahoney lost control of his car on Congers Rd while en route and crashed into a tree.  Mahoney suffered compound leg fractures, a fractured shoulder, broken hand and a head injury as a result of the crash.  Police then learned that LaPlaca had cut himself with the razor, then called his stepfather to tell him that he had been robbed.  LaPlaca was then arrested again last month when he sold cocaine to an undercover officer near the same location where he’d falsely reported being stabbed.

On May 5, a Clarkstown Police car and a ‘civilian’ vehicle collided. The civilian was hospitalized, but is recovering. The civilian was issued citations for failure to yield right of way, making an unsafe turn, and unlicensed driving (although the linked article notes he was driving with a suspended license, not simply without a license).

The carefully crafted newspaper article does an excellent job at making sure the reader cannot fully reconstruct the accident by using abstract words like “intercepted” to describe the moment of the actual collision. The photo of the civilian vehicle is also taken from an angle that hides all of the damage. But one thing is clear from the photos: The front the police car, on the passenger side, collided with the passenger side of the civilian’s vehicle, towards the front. A passenger-side to passenger-side collision involves some pretty poor driving.  The article notes there is video footage of the accident, but naturally, we are left to trust the official police interpretation of what the tape shows.

One thing that particularly is annoying is the use of the word ‘civilian’ to describe the driver of the SUV. Police are civilian law enforcement; they are civilians as well.

The article also notes that the officer was not driving with his siren on. But perhaps we should ask Clarkstown police to adopt a policy like those in Puerto Rico where police drive with their lights on any time they’re on duty.

Also, what’s up with the tag “SPORTS” at the end of the Journal News article URL? Is this some kind of sport to anyone?