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 goes HARD on toll jumpers, but there’s virtually zero enforcement on traffic and cars. Everywhere I go I see assholes with illegally modified vehicles, degenerates speeding down shoulders and medians, motorcycles on crowded sidewalks and pedestrian paths, and too many drunk drivers to count. There are so many cases where one pig parked on the shoulder during rush hour would fund the city budget for a year.
Instead we get whole families of pigs loitering by the turnstiles
Once I was in NYC and saw a little pack of motorcycles doing wheelies and running red lights.
Sounds like a lovely Tuesday afternoon
Who drives and who uses the subway.
That’s your answer.
Apparently we’re calling commuters “straphangers” now too. I wonder if the NYPD will shoot at speeding wheelgrippers next.
The subways used to have straps on the bars to hold on to during the ride. They’ve been called straphangers for a very long time. In the 80’s one of my brothers was part of the Straphangers Campaign.
So now can we call them “pole hangers”? “Pole grabbers”? “Pole holders”? If they’re listening to music and swaying in time, perhaps “pole dancers”?
I’m sure there are better terms but I’m not very creative.
Fair enough, my ignorance/age is showing.
I’ve taken public transit all my life so I understood what it meant. Never heard the term in Canada before though.
I think it’s a NYC thing so don’t feel bad
I was wondering what that word meant. Thanks for the context.
Clearly that’s where the money is. $2.90 goes hard
The NYPD also loves to go after jaywalkers and vagrants, particularly when they’re interfering with the flow of street traffic.
Cars are King, baby.
I totally agree about the vagrancy thing. I have never seen nor heard of anyone in NYC getting a ticket for jaywalking but I only lived there for 50 years.
I have never seen nor heard of anyone in NYC getting a ticket for jaywalking
I had a friend who got grabbed by a police officer and thrown against a wall by a NYPD officer, then arrested on the spot, for crossing outside of a designated crosswalk.
But that was during OWS, so maybe a few other political winds were involved.
That’s totally fucked up. Sounds like they were looking for an excuse to beat someone.
Cops? looking for an excuse to beat someone? Never!
Fuck cars!
Easy friend. That’s for dragons.
Sigh… nobody has brought over that community yet.
Dragons fucking cars? Or cars fucking dragons?
Yes.
The reason is the same reason why bullies go after vulnerable and/or isolated kids. The type of person who has a car and has the money and means to illegally modify it is also the type of person who would give the police absolute hell if they so much as dared to look at them the wrong way. A person jumping a small toll is someone who is poor and will never attract the sympathies of any judge who will treat them very harshly.
Yeah I just can’t help but think of all that sweet sweet money that we absolutely used to get by charging the rich assholes being bad with their fancy toy cars to the point of it being the main funding force for police for decades and wonder…
Why not take?
I want that. I really do. The major problem is that throughout most of history the wealthy have always gotten away with the most incredibly blatant shit and the general attitude of the legal system has been to comfort the comfortable and grieve the aggrieved. The times where the people on the top got their comeuppance and where the wealthy were forced to comply with some level of propriety towards the average person are both rare and brief.
In the US, the New Deal era was by far the most prosperous era in US history, and many of the wealthy people HATED it. The whole modern anti-politics as politics started shortly after WW2 as a response to the whole thing. The video I linked has more information on it… and it is far from the whole story. What I am saying is that it is really fucked just how powerful the propaganda apparatus of capitalism has grown. This isn’t to say that it was somehow unbiased in the past. Prior to WW2 the liberal media basically aided fascists gain power even when fascists were killing many of the same liberal journalists and shutting down their newspapers.
It isn’t impossible. It is just fucked is what I am saying, and things will get a lot worse before things get better… and the sad reality is any recovery will be very brief since that is the way how humans work.
They used more money in ammunition than the amount of money the shootout started over!
Evidence of why the “Chris Rock solves gun crime” strategy won’t work.
Chris Rock solves gun crime
Make bullets cost $5000 a piece!
A corp strats
They shot because the guy charged at them with a knife, not because of the fare. OP’s thread title is deliberately misleading, in a desperate attempt to twist this into ACAB fuel.
Unless you have evidence of that, stop spreading it.
Your prejudiced assumptions do not trump the evidence we have. The knife is on body cam.
They have a picture of a knife
That they cannot produce.
The police lie. We’ve caught them lying so many times now that they don’t get the benefit of the doubt much less some higher credibility.
Until they release the body cam footage, all we have is a blurry photo of someone on the ground holding a knife. As nice as that image is, it does nothing to support the claim that they were “charged at with a knife” and that is the claim people are holding you to task over (and assuming that is true, just allowing this situation to escalate to that point was inexcusably incompetent). The NYPD has been caught intentionally misleading the public with bodycam footage many times before and thus lack the credibility to be believed without evidence, especially when they are being this cagey over releasing the footage. This may very well have been the case, but until they prove it we can’t reasonably take them at their word and you damn well know it.
Just having them there on detail probably costs more than they recover from fare evaders.
Legitimately. It’s not even a joke. Millions have been spent on defending 100k in fare evasion.
The NYPD budget is in the ballpark of 11 billion
Proposed reform measure: Just like teachers have to buy classroom supplies out-of-pocket, have police officers buy their own ammo.
“We will be working through the timeline of today, but make no mistake, the events that occurred on the Sutter Avenue station platform are the results of an armed perpetrator who was confronted by our officers doing the job we asked them to do," Donlon said.
Could we maybe not ask police officers to escalate minor and petty conflicts all the way up to shooting everyone in the immediate vicinity?
doing the job we asked them to do
Ah, so we should pursue this ‘we’ who are asking cops to kill innocent people. Thanks, Donlon!
“armed perpetrator” ah, so any american that commits a crime, then?
Naturally, follow the rules, or the cops start shooting /s
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Big IF
if the footage backs up the cop’s story it will get released eventually.
So it won’t?
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.
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.
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.
Why hasn’t the city released the full body cam footage?
Probably because there was no knife in the footage.
Comments like these are all over the thread…
There’s a still image of the police body cam footage here which shows the knife: https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nypd-shooting-sutter-ave-subway-station-brooklyn/
Sorry but I’m not going to take the city or cops at their word because we’ve seen multiple similar incidents in the past where they spun their story then when forced to release the footage it’s a completely different story.
I’m responding to a comment that said there was no knife in the footage.
I linked a still of the footage showing a knife.
But we know whether there was a knife or not isn’t what you or most people on Lemmy care about. You don’t like cops so therefore they were wrong. Facts be damned.
You’re right that a still image of a knife matters little to me, I understand you were responding to a post specifically about a knife being present, and I’m adding that whether a knife is present or not doesn’t change the fact that the city and police are releasing statements and withholding evidence to manipulate public opinion. Why should I have to trust the cops at all if there is video evidence of the events that I can use to form my own judgements from? Why hide the facts from public view?
Fair enough. However, they should release the footage regardless. Especially since 4 people got shot, 2 of which were bystanders, and that this was over a cheap fare. Cops are pretty untrustworthy.
However, they should release the footage regardless.
100% agree.
Since when are stills taken from video that clear? Especially during a scuffle, and with questionable lighting… Something doesn’t add up.
There’s no arguing with you if there’s no sources you believe.
You could say the same if I linked the whole damn video.
Can you?
While they’re being excessively conspiratorial (For fuck’s sake, stills from an uncompressed video are that clear), that image doesn’t tell us anything. We don’t know who the person in that image even was, and it could just as easily have been a bystander, the alleged fare jumper or the cop who got shot that was wearing plain clothes. They could easily answer this question by just releasing the bodycam footage, but they haven’t done that, and time and time again we’ve seen the NYPD refuse to release any of the footage except some juicy still images to cover up gross misconduct of an officer. Personally I doubt this is the case, but the time when I could blindly accept that has long passed.
that image doesn’t tell us anything.
The comment I responded to says,
Probably because there was no knife in the footage.
So, I provided a still of the footage showing a knife.
Sure, we don’t know for sure who it is but I have a pretty good guess.
I too await the full footage.
In the most pedantic and exacting way, you might be right!
The topic here (and my original point) is that the image you’ve linked doesn’t tell us anything except that the NYPD have claimed it’s a still from the bodycam footage. We don’t have any of the context it occurs within, so while yes that is an image of a knife, we don’t actually know that it’s a still taken from bodycam footage of the incident. The original poster’s point was that at the time we didn’t (and as of writing, still don’t) have any evidence that they aren’t just making shit up. We still don’t. And as much as I’d love for the NYPD not to be pulling the same bullshit they always always try to pull, we have no reason to believe that right now. They have earned zero of the credibility you’re affording them.
And, really, a personal appeal: Is it a reasonable use of your time to try and nickle-and-dime the issue until an incident where the NYPD escalated a $2.90 situation to the point that two innocent bystanders were shot somehow becomes palatable? Who cares if he had a knife, even according to them he did not pose a present threat until he was provoked. The NYPD is a goddamn army with the most advanced surveillance system in the entire world and that dude was on a train. They absolutely could have just mailed the ticket to his house like they do with 90% of farejumpers, or if they wanted to be bastards, they could have followed him via surveillance, isolated and then arrested him safely elsewhere. They do that all the time in other cities. Engaging a potentially violent subject on a fucking subway train is beyond inexcusable no matter what the guy did, because while he’s a shithead for (in all likelihood) trying to stab the cops, the cops should not have allowed themselves to be in that situation in the first place. It’s basic shit, volunteers at comic-con can do it, why can’t these inept SOBs?
the man cops said was armed with a knife
Title is meant to make you believe the shooting is about the fare. That seems deliberate.
Sure is: “shot over a $2.90 fare” is literally a lie.
Yeah, they shot at him because he threatened them, but he was also not a threat to them and actively getting away from them
They then opened fire in a crowded area, and one of them managed to shoot the other in the armpit.
They also don’t mention him brandishing the knife at any point, the article just says they were “made aware” of a knife, which could mean fucking anything.
he was also not a threat to them
“[Body cam footage] 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.”
lmao, why the fuck you lyin?
Imagine being caught essentially stealing $3, and instead of just paying up, or accepting the punishment for the theft, your reaction is to threaten the lives of those who caught you.
Proof that you ACAB idiots will defend anything if it means talking shit about police, lol.
and actively getting away from them
He broke the law and got caught, you’re not supposed to be able to just walk away when that happens, lmao.
Shoulda sprinkled some crack on him, then they can shoot everybody, who can argue?
So you’re against lying or?
Problem is, the knife can’t be found. So all we have are the polices word that there was a knife.
still worth shooting two innocent people? can’t radio his description? was he “armed” or did he use it? huge distinction there. I’m always “armed” with my pocket knife, should I start dodging bullets? was he being pursued for a crime?
also, without video the cops are lying by default. can’t trust a cop to do the right thing ever.
I’m always “armed” with my pocket knife, should I start dodging bullets?
Would you pull it without being specifically asked to in a police encounter? Don’t be obtuse. (Edit: And say you’ll kill them)
I have no problem waiting for a video to decide on this one, personally. But the title is dogshit.
2nd edit: Here’s another source which has a still of the video, showing the knife.
I conceal carry. Believe it or not, I would inform police that I’m carrying as soon as an encounter starts, tell them where it is on my person, and ask if they would like to see my CCW license. But I’m not a fucking idiot, so…
I agree with all your points, I just don’t trust police at all. it’s been repeatedly proven they will lie and jam you up, and they have too much power. their word means shit to me, video, or at least audio of it happening, even a legit witness, or they are lying off the bat.
I was even recently pulled over by a cop in an unmarked car saying I cut him off. he didn’t pull me over until I flipped him off for blaring his horn at me. he reversed on the highway to follow me off the exit and still didn’t put on lights, he was a road rager to me at that point and was ready to defend myself, I carry CCW also. he pulled up to my driver’s side and yelled at me from the other lane, no indication at all it was a traffic stop, so I told him to fuck off, didn’t care or know that he was police.
when he followed me into the parking lot, he finally put on lights. I got out recording, dashcam going as well. I repeatedly tell him if he’s a real cop to get someone else there now, I didn’t give him my id, just kept telling him to give me a ticket or fuck off. kept telling him he was butthurt over the middle finger, if I was really guilty of cutting him off, he should have pulled me over when I got in front of him, not after I flipped him off. I must have told him to fuck off and fuck your mom 10 times. I wasn’t having any of his shit.
another unit arrives with a ticket book, and he lied on the ticket, put some charge that was “reckless driving” about not coming to a stop before entering a highway, which was complete bullshit. I go to court, present dashcam of me making a safe lane change with blinker and space, judge is like wtf is this charge? immediately dismissed it, literally 2 min from calling my name.
cop accosts me outside the courtroom and still tries to tell me I’m wrong, admitting that he gets run off the road all the time. he’s a shitty driver, claims he didn’t see my blinker (no dashcam on his vehicle of course) and really pulled me over for hurt feelings. fuck him.
point is, I would have had reckless driving on my record had I not defended myself over this shitty cop. before the court date, I was looking at the exact citation and was driving myself crazy trying to figure out how that applied to what actually happened. luckily the judge saw and it was just as confused when he read it out loud. I fucking hate cops if you can’t tell.
Would you pull it without being specifically asked to in a police encounter?
This basically amounts to “you should care about Haitians eating pets because you like animals”, it overlooks that the veracity of the claim is not established…
No, it’s actually nothing like that at all because I don’t believe that happens often at all.
Whereas people pulling guns and knives on others, cops included, happens all the damn time.
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?
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.
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.
It’s to highlight the idea that the law is more important to protect than the people.
Nothing? Money doesn’t need protection, people do.
Imagine the 2 by standards suing the department getting and 6 million dollars. Because shooting a guy for jumping a turn style worth 2.90.
This is a joke they need to take that money out of the police officers pension.
qualified immunity says there’s no specific law or statute saying you can’t fire indiscriminately into a crowd of people whilst attempting to “apprehend” someone suspected of not paying their $2.90 subway fare… so they’ll be let off with a warning and a nice long paid vacation. Maybe the victims will get some token amount…
Oh wait, you didn’t even mention the cops getting punished, I guess it’s just a given at this point that they won’t be. We see a headline these days about cops shooting innocent people and we can’t suspend disbelief long enough to even imagine the cops getting punished.
America!
Not only that, the fare skipper will be charged with all the bloodshed.
If they start doing that, and only that, no police officer will ever see a pension ever again within a month
Start giving police officers actual training. You know, teach them how to deescalate, how to actually use a gun (because they don’t even know that part) but also teach them to let go.
High speed chases may look cool but they endanger the innocent until found guilty suspect and hundreds of innocent bastards, none of those chases are worth it. Let them go, catch them later safely using actual police investigation work.
Guns may look cool but they kill at a distance and are a high risk for all bystanders, they should be a last resort, not a first resort.
Also,mgive police officers a mandatory psychological evaluation, filter out the psychopaths and the racists. Those you don’t want in a force that needs to protect and serve.
A lot more improvements can be and should be made, but you get the picture
If they start doing that, and only that, no police officer will ever see a pension ever again within a month
Seems like it’s a whole lot of not my problem.
Garnish their wages too. Fuck these fucking bastard pigs.
They would never win. The police were just doing their jobs after all. So what if a couple of innocent people get shot? After all, just because they are currently innocent, doesn’t mean they aren’t future criminals. So really, by shooting them they make it less likely that they’ll commit future crimes!
People win suits against the police all the time. It’s just the police rarely face consequences for it, especially as an institution.
It also exceptionally rare that police officers themselves get prosecuted. Chauvin’s conviction was a surprising twist as such things almost never happen. This is one situation where they threw one of their own under the bus to placate the public while the whole situation actually gets worse.
Like ever since BLM got started, the rate of police shootings have only gone up, and funding has increased AND there are far more laws protecting police than before. In many states it is becoming increasingly illegal to film police officers for any reason. So they might have thrown Chauvin under the bus, but they might make it illegal to film cops in his area, so future Chauvins who get filmed will have nothing to fear, as they will arrest the person filming them and charge them, and since the film obtained is criminal it will be dismissed as evidence.
Based
Are the NYPD still carrying guns with a 12 pound trigger pull? Why can’t they aim for shit?
