Hubert B. Tyman

TIMES SQUARE — On what sources confirm is the final thirty minutes of the outgoing mayor’s administration, a detective assigned to the lame duck security detail reportedly entered the City’s most sacred transitional ritual: trying to cash in “whatever pull is left” like an expiring MetroCard with one swipe remaining.

Witnesses say Det. Sandra “Do You Know Who I am” Gonzalez arrived near the New Year’s Eve ball drop wearing a suit and coveted “intel pin” that the Department has purchased in bulk from Temu, seeking to escort a busload of people in spite of strict instructions from the commissioner, who was a mere block away.

Sources also says she appeared to be experiencing a common side effect of long-term security work: forgetting what it’s like to wear an actual uniform and be treated like a human traffic cone for 15+ hours.

“Listen, I’m on the mayor’s detail,” Gonzalez explained to several rookie officers who had been on post long enough to develop a special relationship with the metal barriers which, coincidentally, were in the right location for the first time in six decades.

When asked is the Mayor was actually here, Gonzalez replied, “No, but I basically speak for him, he’s granted me that authority even when I hold his umbrella,” she said, implying that she has been delegated authority over the commissioner.

She went on, “I can’t believe I’m getting treated like regular people,” Gonzalez said, audibly sighing in a way that suggested the concept of respect for fellow UMOS was an outdated concept, failing to listen when told that other cops were being turned away at the next checkpoint.

“Do you know how many holiday parties I attended? Sure, mostly as a chauffeur or a human ballistic vest, but do you know how many hands I didn’t shake so the mayor could shake them? That’s service,” she proclaimed, using the traditional “finger waving in your face” technique, the hallmark of Departmental entitlement.

Several officers noted Gonzalez also appeared to be suffering from what medical experts call Earpiece Delusion Syndrome (EDS), a condition in which a person inserts a clear coil into their ear and immediately believes they have the legal authority to enter any and all spaces, including but not limited to: restricted areas, roped-off sidewalks, closed kitchens, and the emotional boundaries of fellow cops.

“Once you put that earpiece in, you start thinking you’re cool,” one anonymous source said, who is in his third year of recovery from EDS. “According to one officer on scene, the exchange was described as, “Watching someone try to use an expired Bed Bath and Beyond coupon to buy a toilet brush.”

Gonzalez’s frustration allegedly escalated when she encountered other cops assigned to the event, whom she greeted with the traditional courtesy of someone who believes they are a rank above the laws of common decency.

“Yo, boss,” she said to a uniformed supervisor who was visibly not her boss, “Do me a favor and have your guys open that gate.” Sources say the supervisor had spent the last five hours explaining to people that no, they cannot just “go to the front.”

Undeterred, Gonzalez continued. “Don’t make this a thing,” she added, bravely, escalating it into a thing. “I’m calling the chief.” At press time, it remained unclear who Gonzalez planned to become on January 2, but sources close to the situation believe it will have to be a command that doesn’t require any actual skills.

When questioned about her behavior, Gonzalez defended herself by citing the unique hardships of executive protection. “You know what you don’t understand?” she said with no follow up, leaning against a barrier she has not moved in years.

“Listen, I’ve been at City Hall at all hours. Sometimes I had to wait in a lobby. A lobby! With nothing but bottled water and the crushing weight of being a lapdog for a corrupt politician. “Do you have any idea what that entails? That’s not something a mere patrol cop would understand.

“I mean sure, I got there because I knew a guy who knew a guy who knows the mayor, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t deserve it,” she added, saying that her skill set places her above other detectives that actually follow leads and work cases.

Gonzalez further explained that, on the mayor’s detail, “You don’t get respect, you command it,” then demonstrated this philosophy by calling someone on speakerphone and saying, ‘Tell them I’m who I say I am!”

“Let my people in, and we’ll just stand in the corner,” she proposed. “We’ll be discreet. I’m basically invisible. I’m used to it.”

With that statement, she then came to an internal realization about what had transpired, proclaiming that after all, “Executive protection is really just walking three steps behind someone who won’t make eye contact with you unless the cameras are on.”

Moments later, witnesses say she pivoted to Plan D: trying to enter her busload of visibly embaressed revelers through a different checkpoint while loudly explaining to no one in particular that, “The job is dead.”

She then drove off into the night, headed toward a new year where her influence is expected to drop faster than the ball itself. Sources later said she was assigned to answer phones at the Intelligence Bureau command center.

— Reporting by Hubert B. Tyman —