He was killed by the NYPD for jumping a turnstile.
He was killed by the NYPD for jumping a turnstile.
I’m new to New York.
I’m still learning to navigate the place. I’m still learning the culture and traditions.
Like in Brooklyn they call Manhattan the City. In the Bronx they call Manhattan downtown.
Somethings are similar to Chicago where I came from.
Official corruption is pervasive and every new scandal gets a response from the citizenry that is like, yes, of course. Politicians are corrupt.
The current mayor, Eric Adams, and his administration is currently caught up in a boatload of investigations for corruption by the feds.
Members of his administration are resigning right and left.
Adams is up for re-election next year and challengers are getting in line to challenge him.
And then there is this weekend’s police killing of a subway turnstile jumper.
After chef Derrell Mickles allegedly snuck into a subway station without paying his fare on Sunday, the NYPD tried to arrest him. They claim that Mickles muttered "I'm going to kill you if you don't stop following me" and drew a knife. (Mickles' mother says the knife was from his job.)
After failing to subdue Mickles with a taser, the officers shot him, two bystanders, and one of their own in the crowded station. Police hit one of the bystanders, a 49-year-old man, in the head; he was in critical condition. So is Mickles, whose family only found out about the incident when a reporter from The Gothamist showed up at their house.
"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," Interim Police Commissioner Tom Donlan said at a Sunday press conference. But some of the bystanders in the line of fire disagree. One video shared by independent local journalist Talia Jane shows a bystander shouting "They're shooting recklessly! He shot his own fucking partner!"
Mickles was within seven feet of the officers when they shot him, the NYPD says. Police are traditionally taught the "21-foot rule," which says that a suspect holding a knife within 21 feet is close enough to pose an immediate threat. But the 21-foot rule is not a license to start shooting anyone within that distance; Lt. Dennis Tueller, the Salt Lake City police officer whose 1983 research led to the rule, also recommended making a "tactical withdrawal" or trying to "avoid the confrontation altogether."
And a $2.90 subway fare seems like an awfully small thing to endanger the public over. Earlier this year, the NYPD and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) announced a crackdown on turnstile jumpers called "Operation Fare Play." In addition to costing around 4 percent of the MTA budget every year, MTA head Janno Lieber said, theft of services "creates a sense of disorder in a public space."
Of course, so does shooting up a crowded subway platform. (Reason)
I’m new around here.
So maybe that’s why I don’t understand why a city administration, including it’s corrupt police department, has decided, of all thing to be focused on, they are focusing on a campaign aimed at curbing people from jumping the turnstile on a $2.90 fare.
Adams is up for re-election next year.