This is such a bizarre story from NYC for many reasons.

First, a purportedly undercover agent jumps out from a Jeep Cherokee parked in a bus stop and generates a huge scene drawing widespread attention. What? How could anyone be any worse at avoiding observation?

Second, excessive physical force over a parking ticket deserves serious attention. Completely unnecessary, disproportionate and unprofessional of the FBI.

Third, after the FBI agent demanded the fine be voided and was told it was impossible he grabbed the ticketing device “to somehow cancel his ticket, with a void slip popping out” of the traffic policeman’s printer on his belt.

Talk about blowing cover yet again. What’s this magic void button a traffic policeman didn’t even know about?

Fortunately nearby police intervened and managed to control the FBI agent who clearly was having a mental breakdown.

Fourth, the FBI agent was taken to the police station where he paid the parking ticket (even though he had printed a void slip) and was released without further charges. I wonder if there is a penalty for printing a false void receipt.

Each one of these steps offers a lot to unpack for those thinking about how justice functions.

Above all, the third and fourth points suggest a very simple resolution was available that would have left alone an undercover operation allegedly important enough to block a bus stop (traffic tickets can even improve cover, but more importantly the FBI couldn’t park in that spot if parking rules weren’t enforced). Physical harm to an innocent traffic officer was the real crime here.