NYC vigilante films himself fixing license plates locals have damaged to avoid paying fines

A man has been branded a lawbreaker by the New York Police Department for repairing license plates purposely defaced to avoid paying fines - a phenomenon officials say has 'robbed' the city of more than $100million this year.

The unlikely hero goes by the name of Gersh Kuntzman, whose record of his exploits on Twitter has earned him both the distinction of a local hero from his fellow citizens and ire from others - including sworn officers. 

An accomplished journalist with a career tracing back to 1989, Kuntzman spends his days at a desk before heading out to search the city streets for obscured plates to recolor or straighten back into place.

Kuntzman is attempting to combat camera evasion - when drivers cover plates with camera-proof screens and sprays or deface them to avoid detection by speed and red-light cameras.

Kuntzman - whose actions have been branded as 'criminal mischief' by the cops - has posted videos on social media since last month after the arrest of lawyer Adam White, who was charged after removing an object obscuring a non-police license plate in Brooklyn.

White's charges were dropped this month, all while Kuntzman spearheaded a crusade against damaged plates - which officials said has lost the city more than $100million in fines.

Kuntzman, meanwhile, argues that the advent of illegal plates comes as part of a recently surfaced disregard for road rules stemming from the pandemic, which encourages dangerous driving.

Statistics support Kuntzman's assertions, with at least 125 pedestrians and cyclists killed in road incidents so far this year.

Those numbers come after the deadliest year ever on the city’s streets in recent history, according to data released by transit non-profit Transportation Alternatives, where 273 people were killed. 

The data, up markedly from only a few years ago, was attributed to an alarming increase in hit-and-runs, which doubled since 2018, and a 42 percent increase in pedestrian fatalities involving SUVs. 

Last year, Big Apple crashes killed 124 pedestrians, 50 motorcyclists, 19 cyclists and 15 people on mopeds and ebikes. More intricate data for this year is set to release in the coming month.

However, as hit and runs have surged - with 93 involving critical injuries reported last year - arrests for those same offenses has plummeted, with just 23 percent of hit and run cases yielding an arrest last year, and only 3 percent of them ultimately solved.

The number illustrates a pronounced 12 percent drop from 2018, before the pandemic and defund the police protests brought an era of lawlessness to the city that has since persisted.

Experts and other seasoned New Yorkers such as Kuntzman have attributed this adverse phenomenon to camera evasion, and has made it his mission to spot out bent, discolored, and other scannable tags and fix them himself.

That said, his mission - well-documented on social media - spawned an unfavorable response from the New York Police Department, after it brought him to many police vehicles sporting unreadable tags.

Not one to discriminate, Kuntzman mended those vehicles just as he would any other, causing the force to warn in statement that the department takes license plate tampering 'very seriously' - 'regardless of whether it is a member of the public or one of our officers.'   

Kuntzman, an editor and reporter who has held bylines at both The Daily News and The New York Post, has also claimed to receive additional threats from other locals as a result of his actions.

The veteran journalist, however, has remained adamant in continuing his campaign -carrying a screwdriver to remove covers and fake plates and has a blue Sharpie that he uses to restore plate letters and numbers that have been scraped away.

In one video posted by Kuntzman last week, the Good Samaritan claimed that one car boasting a defaced plate belonged to an officer stationed at the 78th Precinct in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Other videos show similar offenses from other city officials, who Kuntzman and others claims have surfaces  as some of the worse offenders when it comes to license plate laws.

He and other advocates say they frequently observe high concentrations of illegal plates around courthouses and police precincts.

Officials from the New York Police Department did not provide further comment on those claims when contacted Saturday by Dailymail.com.