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NY Post
New York Post
23 Sep 2023


NextImg:Rat takes a run through NYPD patrol car, shocking video shows

This time it’s the cops getting ratted out.

Gross video posted online this week shows a rat scurrying across an NYPD car’s dashboard outside an Upper West Side stationhouse, which neighbors told The Post is crawling with the beady-eyed scourge.

“It’s disgusting,” said one precinct cop. “I hate rats. I would’ve gone crazy if I was in [the car] and it jumped on me.”

The video includes a narration by cops who are filming.

“Bro!” a cop can be heard saying in the clip recently posted on TIKTOK. “You gotta get the whole RMP so the lieutenant can see it,” he said, referring to a Radio Motor Patrol, police lingo for a patrol car.

The vermin are a huge problem in the neighborhood and around the city, where calls to 311 spurred city officials to create new garbage policies and an interactive “rat information portal,” or “rat map,” to try and slow the growing rat population.

Rat scurries across NYPD patrol car’s dashboard on UWS.

Joe Bolanos, president of the West 76th Street Park Block Association, 71, said the Upper West Side is “overrun” with rats. He noted his neighbors have had problems in the past with the vermin ruining cars and have been complaining about the pests’ presence in recent days.

“Rats get into the engines under the car to gnaw on the wiring and they chew up the wiring,” he said, noting that construction, heat and garbage have been a boon to the unwanted neighbors. 

Longtime UWS resident Maria Danzilo, 67, said the rodent plague has gotten so out of control that when her daughter visited home last year from the West Coast she was terrified to step out for fear of running into rats on the sidewalk. 

Rat in car.
Rat explores patrol car in video taken by cops.

“Heading west on 83rd Street, they were dodging rats at night,” she said. 

“It’s completely out of control and if you’re near the Museum of Natural History, in all the gardens there, they leap out at you from the grass. Everyone knows not to go out at night.”

Upper West Side native Nora Prentice, joked that the rat seemed qualified to join the force.  

The rat in the car.
A video of the rat’s activities was posted on social media.

“Clearly he’s a highly skilled sniffer,” Prentice laughed. “Hire that rat as a precinct detective.”

A police spokesman said the car in the video is only for use by supervisors and that the door had been left open for a brief period.

The precinct’s commanding officer “thinks a rat jumped in. The supervisors use that car and it sits there until someone wants to use it,” said Deputy Commissioner of Public Information Tarik Sheppard.

The parked patrol car
Officials said the precinct has restaurants around it that attract rodents.
J.C. Rice

Joe Bolanos, president of the West 76th Street Park Block Association, said the neighborhood is "overrun" with rats.

Joe Bolanos, president of the West 76th Street Park Block Association, said the neighborhood is “overrun” with rats.
J.C. Rice

Sheppard added that there is a restaurant next to the precinct and that trash is put outside at night, drawing in the rodents.

Additional reporting by Dean Balsamini.