Basically anyone who is a cop, knows a cop, knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a cop, puts one of these in his/her car and parks wherever the fuck they want to - including on sidewalks, blocking accessibility - knowing they will never get a ticket or towed.
If you use the city system to report them, the reports get closed out without action, and there are cases of people getting harassed by cops for trying.
If there's any merit to the concept of "broken windows" policing, it certainly should apply to this practice by the cops themselves. Free parking sounds like a small thing, but it's created a class of cop and cop-adjacent people who think they can do whatever the fuck they want in the city.
New York City Sheriff Anthony Miranda is under investigation over an allegation he solicited donations for a law enforcement organization he leads in exchange for looking the other way on subjects of enforcement, sources told The Post.
And it isn't really a small thing when they're blocking hydrants, crosswalks, and sidewalks.
Also they have guns and generally don't get in trouble for killing people.