Towed Cars, Assault Guns: NYPD Chief Funeral Disrupts Park Slope

BROOKLYN, NY — Police officers, some armed with assault rifles, cordoned off stretches of Park Slope and Carroll Gardens this week — and towed cars — for a retired officer's wake and funeral, according to neighbors and a funeral home worker.

The disruption started Tuesday morning, when neighbors — posting in a Park Slope Facebook group — said that parking along a stretch of Fourth Avenue was blocked off by NYPD no-parking signs for the wake of former NYPD Chief Charles Scholl, a beloved figure in the force who died June 17.

Scholl's wake was held Tuesday afternoon and evening at Leone Funeral Home, located on Fourth Avenue and 21st Street. Some neighbors said parking was blocked along the avenue into the 50s.

An employee at the funeral home, who didn't give her name, confirmed with Patch that police blocked off parking along the avenue Tuesday "for blocks" — a move she said is often seen at the funeral home for NYPD, FDNY and sanitation worker memorials.

Chaos intensified Wednesday morning, when police officers, some armed with assault rifles, started towing cars in Carroll Gardens to make room for police parking during Scholl's mass funeral, held at St. Mary Star Of The Sea, according to passersby and journalists on the scene.

Officers rode horses through the streets as helicopters surveilled the area from above, photos show.

NYPD "no parking Wednesday" signs were posted in the neighborhood Tuesday, one local said, but many residents reportedly didn't notice them and were shocked to learn that their cars had been towed.

The NYPD did not immediately respond to Patch's repeated requests for comment as to why the cars were towed, and to where, as well as why officers were apparently heavily armed.

High ranking officers told Jody Rosen — a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine who shared the disruption in Carroll Gardens in a multi-part Twitter thread — that the automatic weapons were necessary because there were "dignitaries" at the funeral.

The scene on Brooklyn's streets during Scholl's wake and funeral prompted outrage over the NYPD's budget, which stayed at about $11 billion in the city's recently-passed 2023 budget despite education cuts, among others.

"Fun to see this absurd display of NYPD profligacy just steps from PS 58, the neighborhood school whose budget was slashed by $1.5 million in Mayor Adams’ austerity measures," Rosen tweeted.

Others echoed similar sentiments, decrying social service cuts despite the police's multi-billion-dollar budget, and criticizing the NYPD for prioritizing its parking over others' (especially with multiple subway stops within walking distance).

Long after the 9:30 a.m. funeral ended, hordes of officers were still milling around the area with seemingly little sense of urgency to remove their vehicles or unblock streets, reporter Michael Cohen tweeted from the scene.

"Funeral has been over for a while … but hey no rush in getting the neighborhood back to normal," he wrote.