Every vehicle owned by the state, a public authority, a county, town, city or village, and operated by the police department or law enforcement agency of such governmental unit or by a constable or police constable of a town when acting pursuant to his special duties. Any other vehicle operated by a chief or deputy or assistant chief of a police department, a sheriff, undersheriff or regular deputy sheriff, and a vehicle owned and operated by the law enforcement unit of a public or private corporation authorized by law to maintain a unit for the enforcement of law on the property of such corporation shall be a police vehicle only for the purposes of section one hundred one of this chapter.
New York Legal Code