Photo: Kyle Mazza/NurPhoto via AP
In a Brooklyn subway station on Sunday afternoon, police shot and injured three people and a fellow New York Police Department officer over a $2.90 fare. This is what safety and security looks like in Mayor Eric Adams’s New York, where problems of poverty and hardship are met with policing and state-sanctioned violence.
At around 3 p.m. Sunday, at the Sutter Avenue stop in Brownsville, Brooklyn, a 37-year-old man allegedly evaded paying the subway fare. According to reports, two police officers pursued this man up three flights of stairs and confronted him on the station platform. Police say the man pulled out a knife. Both officers opened fire on the man, piercing him with several bullets, while also striking two bystanders; one of the officers was hit with friendly fire. One of the bystanders, a 49-year-old man, is in critical condition in the hospital from a bullet wound to the head.
This is what happens when you flood a major transit system with a government-sanctioned, taxpayer-funded armed gang coated with official impunity and prone to violent escalation.
Sunday’s police shooting should be a lesson in why the subway should not be teeming with cops, responding to “crimes” of poverty — like fare evasion and panhandling — with deadly force. Unsurprisingly, the Adams administration has framed the incident within its ongoing, mendacious narrative about rampant subway crime, for which more policing is the only answer.
“Earlier today, one of our officers was shot while protecting our subway system,” Adams, a former cop surrounded by intensifying corruption scandals, wrote on X. “I am relieved to report he is in good condition now, and we have arrested the suspect who put so many lives in danger. I cannot thank these officers enough for their bravery.”
A community note was added to the post by readers, noting, “The officer in question was shot by a fellow NYPD officer. NYPD officers also shot 2 bystanders and the fare evasion suspect” and linking to a New York Times report on the shooting.
Under the cop logic to which Adams adheres, however, there is no circumstance which could fail to affirm the necessity of excessive policing. Even an egregious display of violent escalation and incompetence is, for Adams, grounds to celebrate police “bravery.” The idea that it was the alleged fare evader who “put so many so lives in danger” would be laughable, were the consequences of such police-thinking not so grave.
Under Adams, the number of police stops and confrontations has surged. Despite the thorough debunking of so-called broken windows policing when it comes to improving public safety, the NYPD has recommitted to the work of harassing poor and unhoused New Yorkers, especially New Yorkers of color. The NYPD recorded more stops of New Yorkers in 2023 than it has in nearly a decade, and 89 percent of those who were stopped are Black and Latine.
“Adams has touted increased stop activity as a key ingredient to driving down crime, but that argument has been thoroughly disproven. As recorded stops fell 93 percent between 2011 and 2014, murders and shootings plummeted, and other serious crimes dropped significantly as well,” wrote Simon McCormack and Melissa Avilez Lopez of the New York Civil Liberties Union earlier this year.
They noted that, while there’s no positive correlation between public safety and increased police encounters, “there is reason to believe that increased stop activity leads to more police misconduct. Complaints of NYPD officer abuse have skyrocketed under Adams as stops have spiked.”
A staggering 93 percent of riders arrested for subway fare evasion were Black or Latine. Police have arrested 1,700 people for fare evasion and ticketed another 28,000 people so far this year. The city’s argument, of course, is that fare evasion deprives the New York City transit system of necessary funds. According to Metropolitan Transit Authority and City Council records, the total lost to fare evasion amounted to 14 percent of the MTA’s potential pool of revenue and nearly 4 percent of its operating budget — an estimated $690 million in lost revenue. It’s not an insignificant figure, but nothing about the budget problem requires hundreds of armed cops as a solution.
Overtime pay for police in the subways skyrocketed from $4 million in 2022 to $155 million in 2023 — from an economic standpoint alone, this hardly seems a prudent use of resources. Meanwhile, NYPD misconduct settlements have cost the city more than $500 million over the past six years, including nearly $115 million in 2023.
Greater desperation is met with more policing, producing greater desperation still.
Thirty percent of low-income New Yorkers reported that they often struggled to pay subway or bus fares, according to a Community Service Society study.
The imperative to expand and enhance the accessibility of the current half-price Fair Fares program, which is utilized by only a third of eligible New Yorkers, must be prioritized. The allocation of more funds to law enforcement while slashing budgets for social services only perpetuates a vicious cycle, where heightened desperation leads to increased policing, resulting in even greater desperation — thus fueling right-wing demands for further policing.
According to civil rights attorney Scott Hechinger, the NYPD spent an additional $150 million last year to apprehend individuals unable to afford subway fare, despite the total amount owed by fare evaders caught being only $104,000. Hechinger pointed out that this significant sum could provide free fares for 95,000 impoverished New Yorkers annually.
Nevertheless, it would be shortsighted to ignore the deeply ingrained political economy of punitive measures in New York and across the nation, which often view poor individuals, especially Black individuals, as sources of fines or bodies to fill correctional facilities. Disrupting the current bipartisan consensus on “law and order” will require more than just financial prudence. However, it is crucial to recognize that incidents like the recent shooting are a direct result of the pervasive violence in everyday city life, exacerbated by excessive policing.
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