Metro

Confetti at Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade contained police secrets

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(Warzer Jaff)

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Charlie Brown wasn’t the biggest loser at this year’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Shredded police documents containing Social Security numbers, names of detectives and even a mention of Mitt Romney’s Long Island motorcade rained down on revelers as part of the confetti used for the Macy’s extravaganza.

Some of the material from the Nassau County Police Department remained scattered yesterday near Central Park West and West 65th Street — even as the department vowed a thorough investigation.

Paradegoer Ethan Finkelstein, of Manhattan, was amazed to find the information flying around.

“A friend of a friend was standing in front of me, and she had a big piece of confetti on her coat. She saw it had something on it, and we read it said SSN, like Social Security number,” said the 18-year-old Tufts University freshman.

“We started picking all the confetti up, and it had all kinds of stuff — birth dates, addresses, account information.

“I don’t know where it came from. All of a sudden it was everywhere!” said Finkelstein, who takes in the parade annually with his family.

“At first I thought it might be documents from Macy’s employees until I saw that there were detectives’ names and information about crimes in there. This is really shocking!”

It wasn’t immediately clear how the files wound up as confetti.

One strip says “NCPD” — referring to the Nassau County Police Department. Another lists phone numbers and apparent Social Security numbers of detectives.

Another appears to list assignments given to cops — showing detectives’ names and their phone numbers. One reads “Romney Motorcade,” which could refer to Romney’s appearance at the presidential debate on Long Island.

“That would have to come from our headquarters,” a law-enforcement source said. “They have stuff that’s supposed to be shredded and go to burn piles. It sounds like some of it ended up where it wasn’t supposed to be.”

A police spokesman said it was “too early” in the probe to confirm the validity of the documents.

“The Nassau County Police Department is very concerned about this situation,” Inspector Kenneth Lack said. “We will be conducting an investigation into this matter as well as reviewing our procedures for the disposing of sensitive documents.”

But Finkelstein said cops haven’t contacted him, let alone come to his house to retrieve the potentially dangerous information.

Remnants of the confidential confetti that were still scattered yesterday included scraps that had addresses and a vehicle ID number.

A Post reporter found hundreds of strips of paper under the grates on the sidewalk that appeared to be shredded documents.

No police — Nassau or NYPD — were posted at the scene yesterday afternoon.

Macy’s said it “uses commercially manufactured, multicolored confetti not shredded, homemade or printed paper of any kind in the parade.”

Additional reporting by Candice M. Giove and Rebecca Harshbarger