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An NYPD Detective Was Caught on Video Going Apeshit on an Uber Driver

The department is investigating the incident after the video got more than 600,000 views on YouTube.
Photo via Flickr user Jason Lawrence

The New York Police Department is probing an incident of verbal abuse after a video of a police detective cursing and making xenophobic remarks toward an Uber driver surfaced on YouTube Monday. The incident, which has accumulated more than 600,000 views since it was posted, apparently started when a man identified only as "Humayun" honked at the cop.

"In an unmarked car, the policeman was allegedly attempting to park without using his blinker at a green light," Sanjay Seth, who took the video, explained on YouTube. "The Uber driver pulled around and gestured that he should use his blinker, casually and non-offensively, and kept driving us."

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The plainclothes cop ended up following the Uber driver before pulling him over and unleashing a tirade. Through the driver's side window, he let loose on an apologetic guy who spoke with an accent and said in the video he's only been in the country for about two years.

"I don't know what fucking planet you think you're on right now," the cop snarled. After Humayun replied he wasn't "planning" anything, the officer violently slammed the Uber driver's door.

Video by Sanjay Seth

"I'm sorry," one of the passengers in the backseat offered while filming on a phone. "You picked the wrong guy to honk at obviously."

But it wasn't over. "Pull over five fucking feet. Do you understand me? Pull over!" the cop yelled when he came back for more. He eventually issued a ticket to Humayan after saying he wasn't "important enough" to arrest outright.

In a statement, Uber called the incident "unacceptable." An NYPD spokesman told VICE on Wednesday, "After review of the video, the subject has been identified as an NYPD Detective. This investigation has been referred to the Internal Affairs Bureau and CCRB." (The Daily News is reporting that the detective is named Patrick Cherryand had just visited an ailing fellow cop at the hospital.)

This incident is especially bad given some recent reform efforts announced by the department. Back in November, the new NYPD head of training, Michael Julian, said he wanted officers to stop cursing. And in February, it was reported that a mandatory retraining program for 22,000 officers was screening scenes from Road House to teach cops how to shrug off confrontation.

"If somebody gets in your face and calls you a cocksucker, I want you to be nice," Patrick Swayze's character says in the movie. "Ask him to walk. Be nice. If he won't walk, walk him. But be nice. If you can't walk him, one of the others will help you, and you'll both be nice."

The detective in question is apparently no Swayze fan.

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