Alarm bells were raised at the 79th precinct of the New York Police Department (NYPD) after a concerned citizen called 911 to report the noises just outside the station’s front door.

According to the New York Post, two officers despatched from the station quickly found the source of the sound were two of their own colleagues “getting hot and heavy” in a vehicle.

Sources told the newspaper that the delinquent officers found in flagrante delicto were partners known to be having an affair.

Neither of the responding officers filed a report or activated their body cameras, but news of the incident “spread by wildfire” in the force before breaking in the media.

A spokesperson for the NYPD insisted there was “nothing in the investigation that determined the police found anybody having sex”.