Whipped Cream Difficulties

Fifteen police officers began surrendering to the authorities in the Bronx at about midnight on Thursday to face criminal charges after a long-running grand jury investigation into the widespread practice of fixing traffic tickets for colleagues, family members and friends, people with knowledge of the matter said. A 16th officer was arrested earlier Thursday night.

Ten of the officers involved are “officials” in the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (aka the NYPD police union).

About midnight Thursday, some of the accused officers began arriving at Central Booking at Bronx Criminal Court, at 215 East 161st Street. About 60 off-duty officers crowded in the main foyer to support their comrades. They formed a human wall, four-deep, between reporters and the some of the accused officers as they came out of a hallway. At three different times, when three of the accused men showed their faces, the crowd burst into applause. The accused men waved and pumped their fists in the air. An official came out of the hallway and stared down the crowd, drawing insults. A woman told the assembled officers to meet in the morning to support the accused officers at their arraignments.

…

On Thursday afternoon, the union sent a text message to 400 of its delegates encouraging them to fill the courtroom in the Bronx with officers in a show of support for the implicated union members. The idea was for those delegates to spread the message to rank-and-file members, the person said.

(Hattip: TJIC on the Twitter. Though oddly enough, NYT links on his Twitter feed always come up with the NYT asking me to subscribe. That doesn’t happen with freeNYTimes or other Twitter feeds.)