UPDATED: NYC Sheriffs Ticket Hatzalah Volunteers Car Parked In Front of 770, While The Member Responded To An Emergency Call in Crown Heights
by CrownHeights.info
If you found a Hatzalah members car parked in an ambulance only parking zone, identified with EMS licence plates and a placard in the window, what would you do? For New York City’s Sheriffs, the answer is apparently to ticket them.
Witnesses and Hatzalah members were shocked as the NYC sheriffs drove the wrong way onto the Eastern Parkway service lane and took their time to ticket a Hatzalah members car parked in the ambulance only parking zone in front of 770.
The member had driven to 770 and parked his car to pick up an ambulance, and was on an emergency call at the time according to a witness.
The slap in the face in giving the ticket was only worsened in the fact that the officer noted in the ticket the VAS (Volunteer Ambulance Service) licence plate, but wrote that no parking placard was displayed. That falsehood can easily be seen in the video, which clearly shows a DOT placard in the front window.
Crown Heights Hatzalah volunteers are presently on the front lines of the COVID-19 Coronavirus outbreak, fielding dozens of emergency calls a day, as well as doing wellness checks on many more.
Yosef Hershkop, a healthcare administrator in Crown Heights, was the first one to break the story on social media, writing “Hi @JihaJacques are you aware that sheriffs under your authority are in Crown Heights giving tickets to volunteer EMT’S (Hatzolah) all of whom have clear plates and plaques and were rushing to their ambulances to respond to critical #COVID19 calls.”
Witnesses didn’t waste any time in videoing the scene, spreading the videos over whatsapp and social media, and sparking a deluge of outraged comments.
Update: Councilman Kalman Yeger has reached out to a member of Crown Heights Hatzalah, and told them that he has spoken with NYC’s Sheriffs Department. The Department said that they will not be ticketing Hatzalah vehicles anymore, and that the department will make sure to educate their officers on what Hatzalah does.