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Comment by nitemice | Hacker News Reader

As someone living outside America, the thing that makes this seem the most unreal to me is the fact I've never seen it on any TV show.

Like, there are plenty of shows about/involving (fictional) police and corruption, looking the other way, giving someone a free pass, etc. but I don't remember ever seeing any where someone used a card like this.

Does anyone know of any? Or is it some sort of open secret that Hollywood has just agreed not to talk about?

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The movie CHIPs that came out last year had nearly exactly the card pictured. One of the newer cops was attempting to pull over and ticket a guy who was going 100 MPH and weaving in and out of traffic.

The scene basically turned into a fight with his more seasoned partner when the new guy refused to accept the "donor" card, he called backup, and the 4 or 5 cops that showed up basically lectured the new guy and apologized to the card carrying criminal. It was a comedy so I didn't think such a card actually existed.

They show up in several episodes of "Blue Bloods." The daughter-in-law of the Police Commissioner uses one to expedite a gun purchase. A guy uses one to when he gets pulled over for speeding and the find a gun in his car. The beat cop son gives one to a girl. There are several other times, too.

Also not from the US, I used to think/assume that the deals happening via "plea bargains" were just mildly corrupt fictional plot devices used in police TV series scripts. It took me until reading about Aaron Swartz's case that I realized "wait what, that's an actual thing?". I always assumed that could only happen in TV series because the pressure and amount of leverage against the suspect could only be presented as a "good thing" (which is almost always) if you know that the officers and prosecutors are not only strictly "good guys" but also definitely for sure right in their hunches, which requires trusting the meta-narrative of a police TV series.

The Sopranos has an episode where Tony tries to use one to get out of a speeding ticket.

https://youtu.be/UZqLLfpxZkY?t=96

There's a substantial amount of depictions of police corruption in America that does make it into media, but often times the depiction is so extreme or so jarring that people write it off as being substantially fictional rather than substantially real. Take, for example, the TV show "The Shield", which had roots in the LAPD rampart/CRASH scandal. There's plenty in the show that isn't real, but the reality is about as extreme.

I'm an American (born and raised) and this is the first I've heard of it

South Carolinian - we don't, insofar as I'm aware, have the PBA card but it's a common enough thing to see folks with the local equivalent, a sticker, given for donating to the local PBA group on the lower-left hand corner of the rear windshield, such that an officer would see it when walking up to the window.

Now I have no idea of it's efficacy, but I've bumped into a few folks who swear by it. Like the card it would be good for, at best, a warning on a speeding ticket or another basic moving violating. Of course I've gotten the same treatment by simply being respectful to the ticketing officer, so who knows? As gfodor mentioned[0], there are likely certain dynamics to the situation and I can imagine an officer seeing that as too on-the-chin.

[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16208934

Virginia has a sticker as well.

It's mainly prevalent in the tristate area.

West Philadelphia?

They're way more common in New York. Way less common in California. But there's also a scene about it in CHiPs.

The Wire has it, though it's not a card exactly like this, it's just a detective's card. If I remember right, Omar tries to use it to avoid being thrown in jail.

That is an absolutely and totally different situation — Omar has the card as a reward for having done the justice system itself a big favour, as opposed to nepotism. Still morally questionable as it’s very unofficial, but he has been given it for contributing to society in general — by a person (DA?) whose job it is to make decisions like that — rather than being related to a cop.

Oh indeed. A man must have a code.

Cop in my family. Using the business card is exactly how I was told to do this for traffic tickets.

I get that the scene in The Wire had to do with being an informant (IIRC), but it's also important to distinguish that it's not always presented as a ridiculous "Get out of jail free" card.

The protagonist in 'Billions' flashes it to the cops, actually he outright shows the card instead of his ID, when he gets pulled over for speeding in his Bentley/Rolls.

These are used frequently in Blue Bloods

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