NYC Traffic Cop Calls Driver ‘Stupid Jew’ In Manhattan

The officer in the video, apologizing for his alleged remark. Image by Getty
A New York City traffic cop is under scrutiny after he reportedly called a motorist a “stupid Jew” at an intersection in Manhattan on Tuesday, Yeshiva World News reported.
According to YWN, two Orthodox Jewish men were driving in East Midtown during rush hour when they tried to make a turn to get out of the lane they were in. The cop approached the car and said, “You can’t make a right turn, you stupid Jew.”
The driver then parked the car, while the passenger went to film himself asking the cop for his badge number. In the video on YWN’s site, the cop initially refuses to give his badge number and apologizes.
“I didn’t mean what I said, I apologized to the other gentleman,” the cop says.
In an emailed statement to the Forward, a media relations officer for the New York Police Department wrote, “The incident is under review. There is no room for intolerance in NYPD.” The officer did not answer a question about whether the officer is being disciplined, or if he has a history of misconduct in any way.
Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @aefeldman
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
