Cops harassing guy for washing his car?

This one has gotten a bit of attention the last few days.

Guy on Long Island is about to wash his car in his driveway, and a cop pulls up and tells him he is going to get a ticket if he does it. Apparently the neighbor hates the guy and called the police.

They were recording the whole thing. The whole exchange is the height of stupidity.

According to a Newsday story, the two guys with the car have been trouble before -- arrests for graffiti when they were younger. But the cop kind of rubs me the wrong way with the, "You don't want to get me mad," kind of threat.

Here is the Newsday story: http://www.newsday.com/long-island/towns/long-island-now-1.1732330/youtube-video-of-garden-city-cop-threatening-to-ticket-man-for-washing-car-in-driveway-goes-viral-1.6647351?firstfree=yes

As it turns out, the two guys were correct. The village ordinance is that you can't wash a car on a public street, highway or public place, but your private driveway is not subject to that kind of ordinance.

The cop should have known that and told the neighbor to stop calling the police over petty BS. Instead, he threatened two people who, at least in this case, were minding their own business and doing nothing wrong.

Situations like that suck. A cop with judgment like that shouldn't be a cop. But since he is, if you stand up for yourself, you end up in handcuffs in the back of a cruiser.

 

I know the part of Garden City you are talking about. But not all of Garden City is WASPY and stuffy. Most of it is kind of middle class to lower middle class, though -- the area bordering Mineola. I assumed that was where this took place.

 

Ms. Ragu and I were discussing it. ... I kind of said pretty much what everyone on here has. I'd want to stand up to the cop, but I wouldn't because you never win those confrontations. Even if you win the war, you are going to lose the battle. Which means cuffed in the back of a cruiser and 24 hours in a jail while they take their sweet ass time booking you. So even when you eventually win, what did you get for it? It's good that the guy recorded the whole thing. The police will take some hell now because of all the negative publicity. Plus, if he wanted to pursue it with whoever the police report to, he had a pretty strong video.

My one question. ... I just don't know the law well enough. But your driveway is your private property, obviously. If you give people notice that they are not allowed on your property, they are trespassing. The cop has no right to be on the property, unless he has probable cause to search because there is reason to believe there is a crime going on, or he has a warrant. In this case, the cop pulled up and they weren't actually washing the car yet. So there was no probable cause -- even using his dumbass interpretation of the statute. And the cop had no other probable cause to be on the property. So I was wondering. ... if you are a Philadelphia lawyer. ... if you told the cop he was trespassing and asked him to get off your property, whether legally you would be within your rights.

Again, it's a formula for ending up cuffed and fingerprinted on a "pissing off a cop" charge. But I was just wondering. At the least if you want to push it and risk getting arrested, could you be within your rights to tell him he has to be a dick to you from the sidewalk, while you stand on your driveway?