A prankster caused a stir online Tuesday after using blue duct tape to dress up his boss’s car as an NYPD cruiser.
“It was like a joke, it was my manager’s car. He was out for 30 minutes,” said Emin Aghayev, a delivery driver at the local pizza shop Bklyn’s Pizza.
Bensonhurst native Jon Graves stumbled on the white Mazda sedan, sporting the flimsy blue tape and out-of-state license plates, on 86th Street near 14th Avenue on the border of Bath Beach and Bensonhurst on May 24. He said he first thought it was either a prop for the pie shop or a way for deliverers to more quickly get through traffic.
“I was really surprised […] I thought it might be placeholder,” Graves said. “Maybe if they were going through traffic they could get through faster.”
He posted a picture of it on Facebook later that day, which was shared almost 1,000 times on the site within 48 hours and made its way to the Brooklyn subreddit, where commenters wondered whether it would cause problems for the driver, with one forum commenter imagining the driver being pulled over by cops and saying, “No, officer. It stands for New York Pizza Delivery.”
SAW THIS IN BENSONHURST, BROOKLYN TODAYSCREAMINGGG
Posted by Jon Graves on Sunday, May 24, 2020
Local councilman Justin Brannan chimed in on Twitter on Monday, simply saying, “Seems legit.”
Seems legit pic.twitter.com/HETXCK0QtE
— JustinBrannan (@JustinBrannan) May 26, 2020
While state law considers impersonating a police officer a class E felony, the Police Department did not respond to a request for comment as to whether that makeshift marking would be convincing enough to warrant any charges.
Aghayev later took the tape back off, but said that his boss saw the humor in it.
“He was laughing,” said the prankster.
