Only last week, The Post reported that a man whose car cops recovered after he’d reported it stolen is now suing because he was stopped two months later while driving the same car. Cops stopped him because no one had removed the car from the stolen list.
Now The Post reports that the city has paid $250,000 in taxpayer money to Donna and Alan Bingert to settle a lawsuit against the cops.
In December 2010, Mrs. Bingert called cops to report that her 21-year-old son Zachary — on whom she had put a restraining order — was in her Queens home menacing her with a knife.
When three cops arrived, Zachary lunged at them with the knife. When he refused orders to drop it, the cops were forced to fire, killing him. The Bingerts sued, claiming the cops didn’t need to use deadly force.
Now what happened to the Bingerts was tragic, and we understand their heartache. But the cops weren’t cited for any wrongdoing. Despite this, they now have a settlement attached to their names — a signal from the city that it doesn’t have the cops’ backs.
A week ago, city Comptroller Scott Stringer announced he was starting a new program to find out why payouts are so expensive. But you don’t need a mountain of stats to appreciate one big reason: the expensive precedent set when the city pays to settle a claim it should be fighting.