Over nine months in 2021, a Brooklyn resident filed 901 complaints over the police vehicles parked on the sidewalk outside the 84th Precinct station house.

On Sept. 10, 2021, Sherwood received a bizarre phone call. In a recording of the call provided to Gothamist, NYPD Officer John Madera, identifying himself as a 311 operator named “Josh Hayden,” asked Sherwood, “Why do you keep putting over the same 311 job over and over and over again?”

However, contact information and details in 311 complaints are confidential, and by calling Sherwood, the police officer who was impersonating a fake identity, was violating the law.

“I acknowledge that, by using the complainant’s personal contact information to give him false information in an attempt to discourage him from filing 311 complaints about parking practices at my precinct, I used confidential information to advance a private interest,” Madera wrote in the COIB document. 

Sherwood alleges in a lawsuit filed in Brooklyn federal court that the call wasn't the only response to his many complaints. He says NYPD Detective Samantha Sturman — also of the 84th Precinct — called him in August 2021, seeking to arrange a meeting to discuss the parking issues. Sherwood declined, prompting an argument that concluded with Sturman ending the call by yelling, "Stop calling, d---head!" the suit states.

Two months later, on Oct. 18, 2021, Streetsblog first reported on the suspicious 311 call. Sherwood’s lawsuit states he received a text message that same day from an unknown number stating “Keep f------ around.” Separate investigations by NYPD's internal affairs investigators and the Civilian Complaint Review Board established misconduct against Sturman in connection with the "singular threatening text message," Deputy Chief Lourdes Soto wrote in a letter to the CCRB.

A judge approved Sherwood's settlement earlier this month, ordering the city to pay $24,000 and Madera and Sturman to each pay $500.

Sherwood's lawyer Gideon Oliver said he couldn’t comment on the case because much of the evidence remains sealed. He’s asking the judge overseeing the case to make the records public.

“Part of what’s important to Mr. Sherwood is being able to shed as much light as possible on what happened to him and on the city’s responses or lack of responses,” said Oliver. Sherwood's legal team received a $132,500 from the city for legal fees as part of the settlement.

The debate over police officers parking illegally outside their precincts has sparked outrage among good government and advocacy groups in recent years. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2019 announced his administration would crack down on city employees who abused parking placards — but advocates argue the move did little to keep police from parking on sidewalks.

Federal prosecutors last year filed a “statement of interest” in a lawsuit filed by disabled residents of a Bronx neighborhood, which stated the NYPD and other city agencies are required to keep sidewalks clear of obstructions or risk violating federal law.

https://gothamist.com/news/nypd-officer-poses-as-311-operator-threatens-man-complaining-about-illegal-parking-at-station