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.
I think if people had even more guns this could have been avoided. What if there was a six year old with a 22 there to respond to the gunshots with some of his own? maybe less people would be dead.
Guns make everyone way safer. We need to start providing them in utero.
This has been an ongoing problem in the city. Fuckin Mayor Officer Landlord has been dumping millions into multiple cops sitting on platforms, on their phones, watching for people jumping the 2.90 fare. Which they just raised from 2.70. They’re more than spending what they’re hypothetically losing on fare jumpers. Neoliberal capitalist bullshit in action.
The uniformed duo followed the alleged fare-beater up the stairs to the elevated L train platform around 3 p.m., when they gave him commands to stop and turn around. 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.
I know it’s like that by headline, but they repeatedly tried to subdue him and eventually he charged at them with a knife after having said “I’ll kill you”. I don’t know I would hesitate to stop him without my gun if he suddenly ran at me with a knife. I’m just thinking survival, instinctively, and not about bystanders around me in that moment.
I’m just thinking survival, instinctively, and not about bystanders around me in that moment.
Kind of fair point for yourself.
However I expect more of a trained professional who has repeated firarms training. They should be sesitized to controlling their direction of fire even in an emergency.
If a guy doesn't pay $3, has a knife and threatens the police -> mental problem. The answer isn't shooting but handling the situation and deescalating.
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.
Any bystander injuries are to be blamed on the aggressor Mr. Knifey.
They chased someone into a train over 3 dollars. There is now hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical bills, possibly over a million. Because someone "stole" a 3 dollar fare.
How the police react to stuff is absolutely up for debate. This is why we stopped doing car chases.
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
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.
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.
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....
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.
“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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
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.
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.
Can we just go back to having a legitimate conductor who also has a protected union job that is properly staffed so that they can do occasional walks through the train to be able to offer ticketing services that allow for rapid and mass transit for the masses that connect us in a way that allows for fucking easy travel.
Please! Or can we at least stop treating trains like an old existing extension of the singularly for profit monopolies paid by the government they were and just straight up have been allowed to become again!
Not even just conductors, these trains need staff period. One of the things about crime in general is that people are less likely to do it if they feel like the area presents itself as safe. Even things down to cleanliness, lighting, staff presence, and noise level will affect crime.
It seems like the city just doesn’t care at all about their transit because it’s extremely dirty, staff are basically nonexistent, the stations are loud and have no boundaries, and every part of them seems to be decaying infrastructure. Japan knows this well, your passengers will reflect the expectations you put upon them by their environment and staff.
We could spend millions of dollars on making fares cheaper for people, but have you considered we can instead give that money to the police so they can prevent mere thousands of dollars in free rides?
Most americans believe the entire point of transit is to sort people who can afford it from people who cant.
If mass transit is affordable for all it is literally considered a threat to these pathetic people who would means test their own kids before they gave them food and shelter if it was socially acceptable.
I was in NYC recently and the amount of wealthier people who just ubered everywhere (or actually just demanded to own a car and drive themselves in the least car friendly place IN THE US) with no consideration for ever using the subway underneath their feet was pretty disgusting and appalling especially coming from somewhere without magic train tunnels underneath my feet that run 24/7....
Notice all of these narratives run essentially in parallel with a nebulous fear of the subway being stoked by Eric Adams and centrists, they provide a convenient impulse to rationalize taking the easy way out and clogging the streets with another useless car. Kind of like convincing yourself as a kid not to do a chore in the basement because the basement is scaryyyy, I mean look at this video from somebody in another basement experiencing a freak scary incident that would likely never ever happen to me!!!!
I live somewhere with free bus transit in the US, and it is shocking how different it feels and yet also how many successful people around me with working cars just categorically ignore the use or possibility of using busses. The US is really really deeply fucked on this point and it makes me feel awful for the rest of the planet having to deal with our horrendous carbon footprints.
New York City has so much potential, but it is utterly ruined by rich conservative money suffocating the city in a chokehold.
pathetic people who would means test their own kids before they gave them food and shelter if it was socially acceptable.
Ahh... I see you have met my dad, who decided only after I called him after having failed my suicide attempt to offer to take me back in after having kicked me out promptly at 18 and then only housed me for 2 months before driving me out to a random street corner and dropping me off saying he had lifted me back up enough for me to handle my own live because I was ruining his "vibe" while having a 3 bedroom house and a job that makes more than half a million a year.
A man who wouldn't let me get a drivers license because I wasn't allowed to touch one of his cars and needed to buy one on my own and figure out how to do it by 16 despite his first 3 cars being bought for him by his parents after he wrecked each previous one.
Americans are the worst culture. Truly fucking despicable what they think is sane. You only get to buy how you want to be treated and the threshold for the floor of basic human dignity is more than most of us can afford.
People love to point at crime numbers on the subway but ignore the percentages, like yeah there's (making shit up , not actual numbers) 15 crimes a day but its NEW YORK CITY thats out of 50,000 rides or some shit. I did the actual math once and it was like 0.005% chance of a crime on the NYC subway, beats the hell out of auto numbers.
I think a better example is if we had to pay money for Fire Services.
"Ohhhh shit son, your apartment is on fire. It will cost you um.... Tree fiddy to put it out. It would be a shame if your family dies if you can't afford our services. " - Trump Branded Firefighters, probably
I mean according to the article, technically they just tried to stop him over the $2.90 fare.
Then because of that he threatened to kill them and they realized he had a knife so they tasered him.
Then when that didn't work and he ran at them with the knife they opened fire.
Multiple people are still dead because they brought guns into a disagreement over $2.90, but the headline implies a lot more unreasonableness on the individual cops' parts as opposed to the overall policy.
They claim he made a threat. The article failed to print his side of the story for some curious reason. It isn't printing any testimony from the bystanders, either.
Multiple people are still dead because they brought guns into a disagreement over $2.90, but the headline implies a lot more unreasonableness on the individual cops’ parts as opposed to the overall policy.
Cops will often lie about the danger of a suspect in order to justify elevating their use-of-force. That said, they weren't that concerned by his unreasonableness when they deployed tasers into the crowd first. They didn't switch to guns until they realized the tasers weren't going to work.
They claim he made a threat. The article failed to print his side of the story for some curious reason. It isn't printing any testimony from the bystanders, either.
Fair enough, supposedly they were wearing body cams so hopefully some of what actually happened can be answered objectively, I'm just pointing out what the article said. If he didn't make a threat or have a knife, then tasering him is a wild escalation, it's just that if he did, then the police can't really just let him get on a train.
Cops will often lie about the danger of a suspect in order to justify elevating their use-of-force. That said, they weren't that concerned by his unreasonableness when they deployed tasers into the crowd first. They didn't switch to guns until they realized the tasers weren't going to work.
Again, assuming what the article says is true, which is a big assumption, it's not that crazy to taser a guy who just got onto a train with a knife and threatened to you. At that point you're looking at a potential mass stabbing incident if you do nothing.
Again, who knows, maybe the cops are blowing his behaviour wildly out of proportion, I'm just saying that, based on the article, it sounds like he wasn't just gunned down for jumping a turnstile.
Then because of that he threatened to kill them and they realized he had a knife so they tasered him.
Then when that didn't work and he ran at them with the knife they opened fire.
Is the version of what's the killers are saying. I'll believe it when I see the camera footage. Good thing they have bodycams, so they can instantly prove their story.
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.
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.
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
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.
Meanwhile corporations steal billions through white collar crime and the police do nothing. Nearly all blue collar crime is due to poverty and white collar crime creates more poverty. If police really wanted to stop crime they'd be pouring over corporations accounting to find the stolen money.
When aiming into a crowd of people? You'd have to be an exceptional marksman to hit your target. Of course, there's the question of why you're firing into a crowd to begin with.
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?
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.
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.
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.
What the hell, I've NEVER heard or read this word in my entire life.
The first known use of straphanger was in 1896. Defined as a standing passenger in a subway, streetcar, bus, or train who clings for support to one of the short straps or similar devices placed along the aisle
I guess that might explain part of that... but I'm seeing consisntent uses from merriam webster's recent examples on the web for the word.
Strangely enough there is a military alternative definition:
"Straphanger" seems to have a different, and negative connotation in current US military parlance. Since this is a militarily-oriented movie, it is probably the definition that applies.
In an article unrelated to Zero Dark Thirty, I found a reference to strap hangers.
"We have a saying in the SEAL Teams about the 90-10 rule. It goes: 90% of the guys that make it through Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training are solid Operators and go on to do great things. The other 10% are constantly bringing the community and their team down. We are always trying to cull the 10% out of the herd. In the military these guys are commonly referred to as “strap hangers”....grabbing at the straps of the good men that participated in this operation."
Trust Hollywood to get it wrong. In the military the term strap hangars can be derogatory, but it's not any better for the person being held on to if it's used this way. It has to do with patronage systems and people not making it on their own merit. Rather than constantly trying to cull the hangars, the people with the straps are enabling them. "There goes Colonel Good Idea Fairy and his straphangers."
Alternatively in the Airborne community it means someone who isn't scheduled to jump but shows up anyways, hoping there's an extra parachute. This isn't derogatory because airborne soldiers have to jump every so often to maintain their status and pay, and life happens so there's no telling why they're in need of a jump. "We have five extra parachutes for straphangers."
I associate the word “straphanger” with tabloid media. They have some words that they really like. It doesn’t really even make sense for NYC Because the subway doesn’t have straps.
If you can't pay 2.9 dollars, then you must leave the city slowly on foot? You must plan the trip so you can get to the next McDonald's before dying of thirst.
But if you can't plan? Your options are cop shoots you, or you die?
We should ask Mr GPT to see what we should do. Mr GPT has been trained 🚆🚂 on millions of lifetimes worth of data. Surely he would figure it out? How do I know it's a he and not a she? I just assumed a dip shit like that would be a guy.
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.
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.
This is why I could never be a cop. Someone skips over a turnstile in front of me, and all I would think is: "not even enough money to buy my next coffee, let alone the donut"
Like why care about public transport? There's plenty of real crimes to handle in NYC.
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.
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...
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.
[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.