A man was slapped with a parking ticket as he lay dead in the driver’s seat of his car, cops and family said Wednesday.
Nicholas Rappold, 21, of Flushing, was slumped across the front seat of his Jeep Cherokee on 165th St. near 35thAve. Tuesday morning when a traffic agent wrote him up for being illegally parked during street sweeping, cops and family said.
“It’s really messed up,” the young man’s cousin Patrick Hill told the Daily News. “While he was dead in his car, a New York City traffic agent gave him a ticket.”
An hour after the ticket was issued, a friend whose house Rappold had left in the middle of the night spotted his buddy’s vehicle still parked outside, sources said.
The curious pal went to see why the SUV was still there and found Rappold’s cold body, sources said.
Investigators interviewed the traffic agent but found no wrongdoing. “He had heavily tinted windows,” a police source said in defense of the postmortem ticket. “It was hard to see inside.”
But family argued that the officer could have seen Rappold.
“She could have at least knocked on the window to see if he was all right,” Hill said.
The cause of death is still to be determined by the medical examiner, but investigators believe Rappold died hours before the ticketing from an overdose.
Police voided the parking summons after they released the vehicle to the family.
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(Source: NY Daily News)
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12 Responses
This goes to show again that this world is crazy- and even those who are trying to help by keeping us safe…..are not much better! Why didn’t he look inside-maybe the guy had a heart attack or something?!?!?
Drivers don’t get parking tickets – cars do – the owner not the driver is at issue. Had it been a traffic offense, then the individual would get the ticket and the officer would have had to talk to him – and presumably realize he was dead.
What a busha trying to explain away the ticket agent’s negligence. He probably didn’t even get out of the car, just pulled up behind, wrote the ticket then moved to the front and put it in the window.
There is no excuse. Every ticket agent should have flashlight. They should walk around the vehicle before writing the ticket. THAT should be the first rule to see if anyone is inside and in need of assistance.
Does this ticket count as part of the cop’s quota?
Could more be expected from a robot?
This can only happen in nyc…
In NYC, dead or alive you’re going to pay your parking tickets!
I think the traffic agent needs a ticket slapped across him.
Of course, these are the same people who complain about how the “stupid cops” woke him up when he was trying to take a nap! I mean- all they had to do was drop the ticket on his windshield, why did he have to shine the stupid light in my face!
So you see, it’s all a matter of perspective.
More importantly though, I want to point out that it wasn’t an NYPD police officer, it was a traffic agent. The two go through completely different training, and traffic agents aren’t authorized to carry weapons. Just thought it was important for everyone to know.
Chaimss
Oh so if they have weapons then they can check if someone is alive or dead? Good logic.
Akuperma, prior to issuing a summons when an individual is sitting in the car, the traffic agent has to ask for ID. If the “driver” refuses to give his ID it has to be marked on the ticket. So, the agent should have, at the very least, tried to request the ID. And the claim that he had “heavily tinted windows”, that would be grounds for another ticket.
Separately, I hope a dead person never gets a summons for a moving violation!!
The cops ticket was dead on