The New York Police Department Deputy Commissioner of Operations, Garry McCarthy, 47, will appear in a Hackensack, New Jersey courtroom today to appeal a disorderly conduct conviction that arose from an attempt to get his daughter out of a parking ticket. The charge stems from a February 18, 2005 shouting match with police at a Palisades Interstate Parkway rest stop in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

"He believed the officers would show deference to him as a high-ranking officer and secure a dismissal of the parking violation," the prosecution's legal brief stated, as quoted in the Star-Ledger newspaper.

McCarthy and his wife had been traveling in a NYPD Ford Explorer while daughters Kyla, 18, and Kimberly, 15, followed in a Saturn sedan. At around 11:20pm the daughters separated from their parents to enter a rest stop and use the restroom. A pair of Parkway police officers, neither in uniform, noticed they Saturn had parked in a handicapped parking space. The officers issued a parking ticket.

Returning to their vehicle, Kyla McCarthy explained she suffered from ankle surgeries following an automobile accident. She had a valid handicapped ID badge on her personal vehicle, but the Saturn she had been driving at the time belonged to her mother. The New Jersey officers didn't accept the explanation, so she immediately called her father from a cell phone.

Garry McCarthy drove up in the police SUV, blocking the unmarked New Jersey police car. McCarthy described one of the New Jersey officer's response to him as a "profanity-laced tirade at the top of his lungs." The New Jersey officers accused McCarthy of the same, adding that they smelled alcohol on his breath. As a crowd watched, McCarthy was arrested and placed in handcuffs.

During a trial lasting several months, McCarthy's attorney questioned the credibility of one New Jersey officer, pointing to 24 civil complaints on his record. McCarthy and his wife were ultimately convicted of making "unreasonable noise" and each charged $230. Their appeal will be heard today.

McCarthy is now being considered for the police chief job in Newark, New Jersey.