NYPD Cop Who Threatened 311 Caller to Protect Parking Spots Gets $500 Fine

A New York City cop who used confidential information from the 311 reporting system to call and harass someone complaining about his precinct constantly parking on sidewalks and in bike lanes was slapped with a $500 fine by the city’s conflict of interest board.

New York City has a problem with cops parking on sidewalks and in bike lanes. Generally speaking, the only recourse citizens have for illegal parking is to file a 311 complaint. Those complaints then get forwarded to the appropriate agency, which in this case is the NYPD itself. In effect, those 311 complaints end up being routed to the very precinct and officers who are often the ones parking illegally. As a result, those complaints are typically changed to the status of “closed” without any action being taken. 

In this extraordinary case, NYPD officers did do something, but it didn’t involve moving their cars. In August and September of 2021, a then-anonymous tipster who filed dozens of 311 complaints about the 84th Precinct police parking on sidewalks and bike lanes in Brooklyn started receiving calls from NYPD officers about his complaints, as Streetsblog reported at the time. One of those calls devolved into an argument in which the complainant told the officer to “fuck off” and the NYPD officer called the complainant a “dickhead.” 

A third caller who claimed to be a “311 operator” named “Josh Hayden” turned out to be NYPD officer John Madera, according to the New York City Conflict of Interest Board ruling. On that call, he tried to convince the complainant that he “might be barred” from filing 311 complaints for filing too many. 

Even at the time, Streetsblog reported it was likely an NYPD officer impersonating a 311 operator. A spokesperson for 311 said operators do not contact complainants. Instead, complaints are shared directly with the agency, in this case the NYPD. Plus, Madera used the phrase “311 job” to refer to the complaint or ticket, which the complainant recognized as NYPD vernacular and not used by 311.

In January, the person filing the 311 complaints, Justin Sherwood, sued the city for violating his First Amendment rights. That lawsuit, according to the COIB ruling, was settled for $25,000, of which Madera paid $500. Madera also forfeited 15 vacation days in departmental disciplinary action for the same incident. Vehicles parked on the sidewalk are subject to a $115 fine.

After Streetsblog first reported on the harassment, Sherwood received a text from a 631 area code number that said “Keep fucking around.”