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A New York City police officer is suing, claiming that he was reprimanded and retaliated against for ignoring the "Get out of Jail Free" cards issued by the police union.

Of course he was.  Impunity is the goal of every police union, and many police officers:

An NYPD officer faced bullying and angry threats from his colleagues for ignoring police union "courtesy cards" used by family and friends of cops to skirt traffic tickets, according to a new lawsuit.

Officer Mathew Bianchi sued the city and a police captain last week in federal court, arguing that his superiors retaliated against him for his stance against the "corrupt" cards.

The NYPD's five unions pass out courtesy cards each year to members, who then give them to family and friends to use as what critics describe as a "get out of jail free" pass for minor infractions such as traffic tickets.

When cops such as Bianchi don't heed the cards, they can face angry calls — or worse — from their colleagues and superiors, the lawsuit contends. “This is not only corrupt but it’s a safety issue,” Bianchi wrote in a complaint quoted in the lawsuit.

………

At one point, Bianchi pulled over a woman who happened to be friends with the NYPD's Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, the lawsuit states. Afterward, Bianchi was removed from the traffic unit, passed over for a promotion and told his ticket "p----- off someone very high up," according to the complaint.

Bianchi contends that the courtesy cards are not only unfair and let unsafe to motorists repeatedly off the hook, but also lead to more traffic stops for New Yorkers who aren't white because cops in the traffic unit are expected to issue a certain number of tickets: a quota.

"As a result of the quota policy and the unwritten rule that you cannot write tickets to civilians with Courtesy Cards police officers are forced to disproportionately ticket minority drivers as they are less likely to possess the Courtesy Cards or have affiliations with law enforcement," the lawsuit states.

This is every police department in the nation, and it is wrong, and corrosive to to a civil society.

When people say it's just "A few bad apples," they forget the the rest of the saying, "Spoils the barrel."