(WXYZ) - He’s become known as the Ticket Man.
Now this traffic officer has pulled over an ambulance – with a patient inside. And his boss says he’s an embarrassment to his city.
It’s not a sight you see everyday. A cop pulling over an ambulance?
But that’s exactly what happened on October 2nd in Warren.
[Cory Young/Ambulance Driver] “The car in front of me made the same left turn, as did the car behind me. But I was the golden target, apparently.”
Cory Young is a paramedic for a private ambulance company, and he’s not very familiar with Warren. Young says he was transporting a psychiatric patient to a facility on Ryan, but the patient started getting unruly as he got off I-696.
[Cory Young/Ambulance Driver] “When the patient began to claw at the seatbelts, claw at things in the cabinets, there are a lot of things in there that could be used to hurt my partner. There was just a sense of urgency for me.”
At the time, there was a temporary "No Left Turn" sign at the intersection. Young says, according to his GPS, the facility was just a few blocks away – to the left – so he made the left turn. That’s when Officer David Kanapsky pulled over the ambulance.
[Cory Young/Ambulance Driver] “I said, 'I have a patient in the back.' He said, 'I don’t care, it’s not an emergency.' ”
Young did not use the emergency lights and siren because he’s not allowed to unless a situation is life-threatening
[Cory Young/Ambulance Driver] “There was literally no time to explain, or talk, or anything.”
Young says after he got back to his post, he did a little research and realized who Officer Kanapsky was.
[Cory Young/Ambulance Driver] “I got a ticket by a legend!”
I first told you about Officer Kanapsky in February of 2008, when we showed you how hundreds of people lined up inside Warren’s 37th district court to pay their fines on Kanapsky tickets.
You see, the more tickets Kanapsky gives out, the more often he goes to court. And the more time Kanapsky spends in court, the more overtime he gets.
According to Warren city records, in 2007, David Kanapsky received $21,562.12 in overtime, boosting his salary to more than $86,042.54 a year.
At the time of my original investigation – Kanapsky wrote thousands of stop-sign tickets every year. But when we caught his fellow officers rolling through stop signs, he was told to lay off those kinds of tickets.
Even without stop signs – Kanapsky is still keeping busy.
Court records show since January of 2008, Kanapsky issued 5,371 traffic violations, generating $724,282.50 in fines for the city and the state.
Officer Kanapsky agreed to talk to me, and he says the ambulance driver never told him his patient was having problems. But Kanapsky’s microphone from the traffic stop didn’t work, so there’s no audio on the tape.
[Offc. David Kanapsky/Warren Police] HC: "Why pull over an ambulance?"
DK: "An ambulance that, with no emergency equipment on, is just another vehicle on the road. And they don’t have the right to do something wrong, just like anybody else.”
Kanapsky admits this isn’t the first ambulance that he’s pulled over, and he denies that he writes tickets for profit.
[Offc. David Kanapsky/Warren Police] “There’s no benefit to me writing these tickets, and going to court over it. If they’re found responsible, or not responsible.
HC: But there is a benefit if you get overtime for court. That is a benefit to you.
DK: The court is generated by the people, not by me.
HC: Right, but if you have to go to court, and you write such a high volume of tickets, and you get overtime for going to court, how can you say there’s not a benefit to you? The benefit is overtime.”
Since my first stories, Warren has cracked down on overtime by changing the rules for cops going to court. Despite that change, Kanapsky says his ticket production is still high.
[Offc. David Kanapsky/Warren Police] “I treat everybody the same. Everybody gets a violation.”
Warren Police officials say right now, Kanapsky is facing some discipline for failing to put a tape into his dash cam video player, which records traffic stops, and for allegedly being rude to someone recently.
[Bill Dwyer/Warren Police Commissioner] “I’m not going to defend him again. He’s, we’ve tried to get his attention a number of times, we’ve used progressive discipline, it’s just not getting through to him. And it’s very unfortunate, and it’s an embarrassment to this department, and to this city.”
As for Cory Young, his patient did eventually calm down. And Young fought Kanapsky’s ticket successfully.
[Judge Matthew Sabaugh/37th District Court] “I’m going to, based on your explanation, dismiss the charge.”
[Offc. David Kanapsky/Warren Police] “They wanted me to do a job, I did my job. That’s all I can say. They wanted me to write tickets, so I wrote them.”
Officer Kanapsky did do something more than write tickets in 2008; he is Warren’s police officer of the year, for saving a woman’s life during a shooting. And, he plans to retire in February.
Kanapsky was very open with me for this story; if you’d like to see more of our interview, please click on
Catallo and Kanapsky Uncut near the top of the page.
