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.

  • Kyrgizion@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    Ahh yes. Nothing like killing a perp and a few bystanders for a few dollars’ worth of fare. USA! USA!

    • Lets_Eat_Grandma@lemm.ee
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      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.

    • superkret@feddit.org
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      They stopped him for a few dollars’ worth of fare.
      They shot him for charging at them with a knife.

      • ieatpillowtags@lemm.ee
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        16 days ago

        We’ll see if that story pans out, I’m sure the body cam footage is coming any minute…

        • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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          The statement by the Department Chief literally references that there is body cam footage, that is the source of information for the statement.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            No no no. They mean the footage being released for public scrutiny. The police have lied about the body camera footage before.

      • trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world
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        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.

        Where is this knife charge mentioned?

        • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
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          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.

          it was the next sentence from what you copied lol

    • TheFriar@lemm.ee
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      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.

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      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.

      • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de
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        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.

      • kralk@lemm.ee
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        Ok, so these people are too incompetent to win a 4v1 against an untrained opponent? Is this better somehow?

    • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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      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.

  • Tiefling IRL@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    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

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldOP
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      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.

      • Gimpydude@lemmynsfw.com
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        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.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldOP
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          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.

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      Apparently we’re calling commuters “straphangers” now too. I wonder if the NYPD will shoot at speeding wheelgrippers next.

      • Gimpydude@lemmynsfw.com
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        16 days ago

        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.

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          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.

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          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.

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      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.

      • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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        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?

    • barsquid@lemmy.world
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      Once I was in NYC and saw a little pack of motorcycles doing wheelies and running red lights.

  • Garbanzo@lemmy.world
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    “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?

    • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      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!

    • Mac@mander.xyz
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      “armed perpetrator” ah, so any american that commits a crime, then?

  • Grimy@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    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.

  • Sgt_choke_n_stroke@lemmy.world
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    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.

    • phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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      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

      • redisdead@lemmy.world
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        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.

    • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
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      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!

    • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
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      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!

  • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
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    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.

  • jaschen@lemm.ee
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    Can’t we just make the Subway so cheap that it’s not worth jumping the toll? Or make it so low income people get free fares.

    • barsquid@lemmy.world
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      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?

    • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
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      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.

      I hate the US so much sigh

      • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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        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.

    • dhork@lemmy.world
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      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.)

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        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.

        • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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          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.

        • Brkdncr@lemmy.world
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          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.

            • Brkdncr@lemmy.world
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              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.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                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.

                • Brkdncr@lemmy.world
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                  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.

        • dhork@lemmy.world
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          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?

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            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.

            • dhork@lemmy.world
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              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?

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                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.

            • WoahWoah@lemmy.world
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              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.

              • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                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.

      • unmagical@lemmy.ml
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        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.

      • Garbanzo@lemmy.world
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        cops said was armed with a knife

        You know they lie to cover their own asses, right?

        • dhork@lemmy.world
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          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?

          • Garbanzo@lemmy.world
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            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.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldOP
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      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.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        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.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldOP
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          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?

  • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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    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.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldOP
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      Then because of that he threatened to kill them

      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.

      • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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        16 days ago

        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.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldOP
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          16 days ago

          the police can’t really just let him get on a train

          If they had, three people would have avoided bullet wounds and one of them wouldn’t be in the ER right now.

          it’s not that crazy to taser a guy who just got onto a train

          If you’ve ever ridden the subway in NYC, particularly during rush hour, the idea of firing a taser into a train full of people is absolutely crazy.

          • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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            16 days ago

            If they had, three people would have avoided bullet wounds and one of them wouldn’t be in the ER right now.

            And maybe a bunch of people would have been stabbed by the guy with a knife who just threatened to kill someone.

            If you’ve ever ridden the subway in NYC, particularly during rush hour, the idea of firing a taser into a train full of people is absolutely crazy.

            Again, they could be lying about the knife and the threat, but if he did have a knife and just threaten to kill someone it would be absolutely crazy to let him get on a subway train full of people.

              • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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                15 days ago

                Oooh what a cool edge lord. You’ve definitely thought this through.

                The public praises the police when they stand around and let an armed man be well enough alone in a group of civilians! Everyone loves it when police do that right?

                Like Jesus fucking Christ, what would you do? Leave a guy with a knife getting onto a crowded train and have two dozen people stabbed? It is naiive to think that there was a good outcome possible once you start making police bust fare skipping, but it is also absurdly naiive to think that the police can let a man with a knife get onto a New York train with just a ‘hey, try not to stab anyone’.

    • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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      16 days ago

      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.

  • phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    15 days ago

    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.

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      15 days ago

      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.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldOP
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      15 days ago

      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.

    • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
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      15 days ago

      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.

  • Xtallll@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    15 days ago

    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.