We're still looking for those cops

To the editor:

On the night of Sunday, Dec. 22, I was walking on West 235th Street at the corner of Netherland Avenue when an extremely intoxicated driver hit a parked car at the southeast corner of that intersection.

There was a passenger in the car, and both the passenger and I called 911 as the driver sat in his car with a blank stare, eyes wide open, and not blinking for a couple of minutes.

He then slowly weaved between the left and right lanes of West 235th as he drove toward Johnson Avenue, nearly hitting all the other parked cars on that block. He stopped briefly, and started driving again, rolling right through a red light.

At that point, I was already on the phone with 911 again. He swerved left and right as he passed Johnson Avenue, making contact with the side of a car of a delivery person before nearly driving head-on into another oncoming car, as he drove on the wrong side of the road.

A major collision was avoided, but he damaged that third car as well. As his car was stopped for the next couple of minutes, he was completely unresponsive to the pleas of the drivers of those cars and other witnesses that he shut off his car and stop driving. Shortly after that, he took off down Oxford Avenue.

Speaking of unresponsive, the 50th Precinct never sent a single officer despite the 911 calls, of which there were at least four. As the next hour passed, the drivers of the cars all gave up on waiting for them, and a few minutes before 9, I gave up on waiting, too.

In an extremely on-the-nose moment, the mayor held a press conference on Monday morning about cracking down on dangerous driving during the holidays. But on the first night of Hanukkah, the 50th Precinct was nowhere to be found — and certainly not cracking down on that extremely dangerous driver.

What a joke.

Chris McShane

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