Police opened fire on a subway platform in Brooklyn during a confrontation with an alleged fare-beater, striking the man cops said was armed with a knife, two straphangers caught in the fray, and one of the firing officers, NYPD officials said Sunday.
One of those two passengers hit by the cops’ bullets, a 49-year-old man, was hospitalized in critical condition after he was hit struck in the head, according to the NYPD.
The two officers who opened fire were assigned to patrol the Sutter Avenue subway stop in the 73rd precinct when they spotted a man skip the station turnstile and walk through an open gate toward the train platform, Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey explained at an evening press conference from Brookdale Hospital.
NYPD pays $126,000 annual salary, that’s about $60 an hour or $1 a minute, 4 cops respond to the fair jumper, if they spent more than 45 seconds on this it costs the city more than the fair was worth.
The point is not how much it costs.
The point is that a poor person needs punishment, and if they’re lucky, they might get to shoot somebody.
No way would I do that job at that pay in NYC, especially as long as pretty much any idiot in the USA can own a gun.
Such a reaction is insane, in other countries they would be prosecuted, right?
In other countries they’d just put in fare gates you couldn’t jump.
We don’t even have gates. Most people just pay for their tickets. Sometimes there are ticket inspections - if you get caught you’ll be fined. Way cheaper than enormous infrastructure for every entrance that just slows you down if you have an annual ticket for example. https://youtu.be/kq-X25pH1XQ
I know the amount in this situation is ridiculously low… but is there an acceptable amount where shooting would have been justified? How much money should it take for a cop to be able to open fire on a suspect? $50? $100? $1000? 10,000? 1,000,000? What’s the cut-off?
Nothing? Money doesn’t need protection, people do.
How much money should it take for a cop to be able to open fire on a suspect?
Broadly speaking, the police shouldn’t be using lethal force unless someone’s life is at risk.
But that gets us to the “we think he might have had a knife” excuse, which is just taken at face value as Carte Blanche to do as thou wilt.
The escalation of force from “jump a turnstile” to “four police trying to surround and tase the suspect” is more tied back to the $2.90 cost. Had they simply shouted after the guy as he fled, nobody would be in the hospital right now. Instead, they went Commando Mode, and bystanders paid the price.
You are suggesting the death penalty for theft. No.
I’m not suggesting it, the post title is suggesting it. They mention the $2.90 fare, as if to show what a pitifully low amount of money they were killed over, which suggests that had it been over a more reasonable sum of money, maybe the shooting would’ve been more understandable. Maybe had it been in the process of stealing a $100 million Van Gogh it would’ve been different.
removed by mod
1,000 dollars is generally grand theft, a felony, and thus liable to the fleeing felon rule in some states.
If you mean morally, then no amount is worth killing over as long as there’s a robust safety net in place. In olden times losing money to thieves could mean literally starving. At which point it’s you versus them. In modern times there’s not really that friction for most of us.
This is an age old American tradition of shooting people who try to stow on train cars. There is an image in American culture of the freighthopping hobo who is trying to find a better place to live and work despite not having a dime to his name. Of course in reality many people have been shot for doing that. Property and a few dollars is worth much, much more than a poor person’s life.
This is like an unfunny onion article. The fact that there can be civilian casualties in NYPDs war on fare jumpers is just shameful. It’s not for the money. They spend $150 million a year to recover $100k. Beyond an embarrassment.
Based
This obviously has in part to do with the toxic American gun culture and it’s corrupt and untrained police, but alsonwoth it’s misguided need for what it thinks is justice, and revenge for real or imagined crimes.
Shoplift something small? In you go with hardened criminals to punish punish punish, fuck you for daring to do that! No rehabilitation, just punish
A lot of Americans complain about low prison sentences in Europe, not understanding that the focus there is on actually solving the problem of crime, instead of revenge, revenge, revenge.
The same thing in Canada. Despite the reputation of Canadians being polite wusses by Americans the Canadian legal system is much harsher than the American system.
Yes! I can’t tell you how many arguments I’ve had with people who genuinely think that burglars deserve to be shot and killed.
The problem is rooted in prison spending moving from a social cost to a private revenue stream.
It’s the classic Cobra Effect of economics. Monetizing the solution to a problem creates an incentive to increase the instances of said problem.
In this case, we have criminalized the free use of public transportation in order to justify more spending on policing.
it seems like you are assuming it wasnt always this way. but perhaps this has always been the function of prison. CIP: Australia
It makes more sense if you start from the premise that there are “good people” and “bad people”, and bad people need to be punished to protect good people. The people who do the protections–like Joe Arpaio–can do no wrong. Even if they seem to do bad things, that’s just in the service of protecting good people.
This premise is bullshit, but everything follows from there.
Our system of regulation has become dysfunctional.
Our police system turns human beings into violence machines. If our police system creates behavior like this from the people closest to it then that system is broken.
The officers are doing what humans do when given too much raw force.
Change the system and the officers will change with it.
Maddrey said the officers followed the man, each firing a Taser which proved ineffective in subduing the man. He then exited the train while it was still at the station and charged the officers with the knife, the chief said.
NYPD still haven’t produced a knife from the scene.
Why anyone would believe a word out of any pigs mouth without seeing body cam footage is beyond me
I am waiting for former cop PR man Adams’ defense of the cops with bated breath.
Mayor Eric Adams, who also attended the briefing, described the knife-wielding man as a “career criminal” with over 20 arrests.
Is that true? Is it relevant? Idk. But it’s in the article.
It’s as relevant as Kyle Rittenhouse murdering a registered sex offender.
In both cases, there is no possible way the person firing the gun could have known that.
Hey now, when Kyle Rittenhouse crossed state lines to take pot-shots into a crowd of protesters, he paid every toll and observed every traffic ordinance. How can you possibly compare Rittenhouse to this turnstile jumping barbarian?
I was comparing Rittenhouse to the cops. Do keep up.
It sounds like the guy had a knife and threatened to use it. It also sounds like the cops tried to taze the guy first, but it didn’t work.
We can argue whether the cops really needed to shoot the guy. But they weren’t shooting at a fare evader, they were shooting at a guy with a knife who also happened to jump the turnstile.
I’d argue that the real problem is that the cops didn’t know how to de-escalate the situation without shooting. It’s like the tazer was their only “non-lethal” option, and when that didn’t work, they panicked. (I could also believe that they were simply incompetent, and couldn’t work the tazer properly.)
Do we actually know if he had a knife? Initial reporting was that the police knew he had a knife because he refused to take his hands out of his pockets. While he did threaten them, it was contingent upon them continuing to follow them. He did not actually attack them until after multiple officers attempted to tase him. Furthermore, so what if he had a knife? As far as we’re aware, he’s got a second amendment right to keep and bear arms. Being armed isn’t an excuse to be killed by cops because you are generally explicitly allowed to be armed.
All in all:
- We don’t know he’s armed
- We don’t know his intentions
- He didn’t immediately attack anyone
- While he did threaten them he made no indication that he intended to follow through until he was attacked
- He continued to try to leave the situation until he was attacked
- The police attacked him first
- He didn’t have a gun
- 4 people were shot by the police;
he was killed(this seems to have been erroneously reported earlier. He is now reportedly in critical condition), an officer and 2 bystanders were wounded - No one was stabbed
While that is textbook escalation, it really doesn’t seem like they shot him cause he had a knife. They shot him (and 3 others) cause he didn’t care about their authority and they couldn’t let the guy that was already on the train go. And all that came about because he tried to skip a fare that costs around the same amount as the bullets fired.
The guy only threatened to use the knife after they stopped him for turnstile jumping. If the New York subway didn’t have turnstiles (the L.A. subway doesn’t), most people would still pay their fares. Most people understand that their fares keep the trains running. There was no need for this. At all.
I should say that there are transit cops that check tickets in L.A. If you don’t have one, all they do is escort you out of the station. And this is the LAPD we’re talking about.
Yes, let’s look to the LAPD for better policing practice. Wow.
That was my point though. Even the LAPD isn’t this bad.
Most people understand that their fares keep the trains running.
Fares make up for about 10% of operating expenses for our trains. User-fees promote a dangerous need to balance yesterday’s costs with today’s availability, which is ultimately self-defeating.
The guy only threatened to use the knife after they stopped him for turnstile jumping.
I should say that there are transit cops that check tickets in L.A. If you don’t have one, all they do is escort you out of the station. And this is the LAPD we’re talking about.
The first step to “escorting you out of the station” is stopping you, is it not?
My whole point is that the cops didn’t get belligerent until he pulled the knife. It also sounds like he might have boarded a train with the knife out, too. (It was the L train, though, I’m sure the riders have seen worse.)
They didn’t start shooting because he jumped the turnstile. I bet if he didn’t have a knife they would have just wrote him a ticket and made him leave.
You dont think your LA cops would have treated their fare evader a bit differently if he pulled a knife?
Yes, stopping you to say, “can I see your ticket?” If the person without a ticket runs, where are they going to run to? Back on the train that just left? They can’t do that. Out of the station? That’s where they were going to be taken anyway. It’s not worth the cops’ time in L.A. like it apparently is in New York.
Again, this shit doesn’t happen there.
Didn’t it literally just happen there like two weeks ago when LAPD TSD used force against someone evading fare and they ran, jumped onto the tracks, and were then electrocuted and run over by a train?
LA metro rail has yearly ridership of a little less than 62 million.
NYC has yearly ridership of over 1.3 BILLION.
These aren’t remotely the same systems.
These aren’t remotely the same systems.
You don’t get to pretend two train systems are not similar because you write BILLION in all caps and bold.
Thank you, by the way, for so clearly representing yourself in your post history. You’re doing this old man a service by making it so obvious that you are continually arguing in bad faith.
K
But it sounds like the guy said “I’m gonna kill you if you don’t stop following me”, then hopped on the train with the knife out. You think the cops in LA would have let him do that?
You show me when this sort of situation has ever happened in L.A.
Because believe me, there are plenty of crazies with knives in L.A. too.
The LA subway has turnstiles. Most people don’t pay. I’d watch maybe 2/3rds of people skip payment by using the wheelchair/bike turnstile. They would do it in front of cops.
They are starting to enforce fares again though.
If they have turnstiles, that is something they added since I lived there a decade ago.
They have the simple waste-high turnstile at every subway stop. At above-ground locations they don’t have these. They have been there for 15 years or longer.
There are no full height “man trap” turnstiles if that’s what you’re talking about.
I took the train from NoHo to downtown or Long Beach all the time and I do not remember turnstiles. In fact, I remember wondering where they were the first time I did it.
Noho as of this summer now requires you to tap to unlock the turnstile to exit too. They are expanding this to other red/B line stops.
DTLA 7th/Fig has definitely always had turnstiles.
Long Beach has not had turnstiles.
cops said was armed with a knife
You know they lie to cover their own asses, right?
Yes, but this time their body cams seem to have worked. Amazing how that happens when it shows things that can justify the cop’s story?
And yet they didn’t release the footage. Either there’s no knife or the behavior of the police was outrageously incompetent. If they were justified they’d be tripping over themselves to show it.
It only happened yesterday, if the footage backs up the cop’s story it will get released eventually.
if the footage backs up the cop’s story it will get released eventually.
So it won’t?
Big IF
I hope the cop that got shot is hurting. Stupid fucks
Definitely sitting at home, getting paid leave and talking to his union provided lawyer and was told not to say anything by his coworkers who didn’t arrest him for shooting multiple people.
[Chief] Maddrey said during a verbal altercation, they “became aware of a knife.” Body-worn camera footage, which Maddrey said he reviewed before the press conference, allegedly showed the man make a verbal threat to the officers. He told the cops, “I’m going to kill you if you don’t stop following me,” the chief said. As the encounter continued to escalate, a northbound L train pulled into the station. The train cars opened and the man jumped inside, according to police. Maddrey said the officers followed the man, each firing a Taser which proved ineffective in subduing the man. He then exited the train while it was still at the station and charged the officers with the knife, the chief said.
Cops clearly did nothing wrong in shooting at a guy charging at them with a knife–anyone would be justified in doing so, cop or not. Bystander injuries are on the aggressor’s hands.
Also:
Mayor Eric Adams, who also attended the briefing, described the knife-wielding man as a “career criminal” with over 20 arrests.
Shhhhhhhhhhhocking!
Bystander injuries are on the aggressor’s hands.
Excited to see the NYPD press b charges on the turnstile jumper for the cop who shot the other cop.
USA is the only shit hole in the world where you can get shot for fare evasion.
No one got shot for fare evasion.
It’s 100% justified to shoot someone who is coming at you with a knife, no matter who you are.
The country has barely measurable mental health care and social network. The dude that brandished the knife would probably have been somewhere else if these were in place. How many other countries have you heard of where this could have happened? Someone jumps turnstiles, they are unhinged and feel cornered by the pigs so they brandish a knife at them.
This regularly happens in the US and nowhere else, yet it’s also the country that is unable to deal with it. Just need to have slightly more IQ than average to put 1+1 together.
At least it was underground, limiting how many people were in the line of fire, every few years they open fire at someone on a major avenue in Manhattan in a crowd. Good times. I’m so glad the democratic party destroyed Scott Stringer by bribing his ex-gf to falsely accuse him of being a sex pest to ensure the DNC’s man, Eric Adams, the biggest shithead to ever come out of the NYPD, could become mayor-king of NYC, guaranteeing Guiliani-level daily police misconduct with impunity.
Schrodingers pig.
The cop shot an innocent bystander in the head but also shot another cop. Until trial, he is both a bad guy with a gun and a good guy with a gun.
