Dermot Shea jokes that NYPD should recruit Times Square hoverboarder
Police Commissioner Dermot Shea on Thursday said the Times Square hoverboarder may not have had permission for the mind-blowing stunt — but joked his flying skills could earn him a spot with the NYPD’s Aviation Unit.
Shea said there didn’t appear to be any “malicious intent” behind the daring display by Hunter Kowald — who posted viral video of himself soaring in the air at the Crossroads of the World over the weekend.
But he said the department will “take a look at it.”
“Who knows, maybe we’ll even recruit him for our Aviation Unit,” the commissioner cracked on 1010 WINS.
“Just when you think you’ve seen everything in Times Square, here comes something you’ve never seen before,” he commented on the flight that stunned revelers. “I think we can all relate to that.”
Kowald, 28, told “Inside Edition” earlier this week he had the proper authorization for the stunt.
“We had permission and asked for it in advance, and everybody was around us to make sure we did it properly,” he said.
But the top cop wasn’t so sure.
“Well, I will say, to my knowledge we have no information of that,” he said on 1010 WINS. “This is something that we absolutely would not recommend anyone to do. I don’t think it takes anyone too long to really think about how it could go bad and fall on somebody.”
He added, “And if anyone has an inclination to do it, I can almost guarantee you will lose your property and it will be taken from you, and subject to potentially arrest.”
Kowald told Inside Edition the hoverboard is a “highly engineered device.”
“I spent years on this thing to make this happen, at least to do it safely and properly,” he said. “There’s a lot of safety built into that device, so essentially, I could have two motors fail and still land safely.”
He told The Post that the device, which he called the SkySurfer, is “the world’s most powerful and solid hoverboard aircraft.”
It was put together by hand — propellers, rotors and all.
“It contains about as much power as eight to 10 average houses all at the same time,” he said.
