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.

231 points

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

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122 points

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.

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2 points

Abortions are prebirth, so should guns

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59 points

How dare you politicize gun violence while a police officer is injured!

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7 points

You mean the one that shot the other people? Officer mental health is important! Someone think of the shooter!!

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16 points

Right, or the bystander that got shot in the head could have returned fire, if only he were armed

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26 points

Take the guns from the police and give them to the embryos. I think you’re on to something here.

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6 points

Why stop at guns? Everyone should have access to portable WMDs to keep the world safe.

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5 points

Hey, we have to draw the line somewhere. Let’s stop at a gigaton.

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10 points
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Removed by mod
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1 point

They stopped him for a few dollars’ worth of fare.
They shot him for charging at them with a knife.

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37 points

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

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-3 points

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

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26 points

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?

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3 points

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

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8 points

He was charging… away… with his knife…

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-27 points

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.

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29 points

The knife that mysteriously doesn’t show up on any footage and couldn’t be located after the fact?

I know better than to believe police lies. It’s all they do. ACAB, no exceptions.

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7 points

Especially the NYPD

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2 points
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There’s a still image of the police body cam here which shows the knife.

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nypd-shooting-sutter-ave-subway-station-brooklyn/

Edit 4 days later: And now we have the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EaAraFPzEo

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29 points

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.

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0 points

If someone runs a red light, and a cop tries to pull them over to give them a ticket, and instead the guy jumps out of the car and tries to attack the cop with a knife and gets shot in self-defense, it is absolutely not accurate to frame that as “cop shot that guy for running a red light”.

But this is what exactly the OP is trying to do. And that’s bullshit.

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4 points

Until cops prove themselves trustworthy, I will assume they’re lying. They have a long way to go.

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1 point

$1000 says there is no amount of examples of trustworthiness you could be shown that would change your mind, just admit what you are, don’t be prejudiced and too much of a wimp to admit it.

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0 points

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.

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26 points

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.

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7 points

It really is bizarre how many people seem to just accept lower standards for police than for random Joe gun owner off the street. It’s not confusing though; it’s just another facet of the great team sport of society for many people.

If we’re supposed to value and respect our police, maybe we should actually expect good things from them!

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5 points

That’s not even the point. The training should have taught them how to de-escalate the situation, or even let it go. They transformed a 3$ fare skipped into a massacre, how’s that normal?

It’s 3$, if he has a knife, just let him go, it’s not worth the risk. You’ll track him down later and get him without killing him, passerbys and other cops.

You don’t need to drop a nuke because there’s a pickpocketer somewhere in the city

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6 points

Ok, so these people are too incompetent to win a 4v1 against an untrained opponent? Is this better somehow?

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1 point

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.

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9 points

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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4 points

Meanwhile in Albuquerque we’ve made buses free because the fare infrastructure costs more than to run the buses.

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6 points

Naturally, follow the rules, or the cops start shooting /s

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19 points

I am waiting for former cop PR man Adams’ defense of the cops with bated breath.

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7 points

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.

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32 points

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.

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2 points

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?

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21 points
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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.)

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26 points

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.

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3 points
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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?

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15 points

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.

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6 points

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.

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0 points

Yes, let’s look to the LAPD for better policing practice. Wow.

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11 points

cops said was armed with a knife

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

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1 point

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?

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25 points
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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.

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56 points

“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?

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15 points

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!

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9 points

“armed perpetrator” ah, so any american that commits a crime, then?

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3 points

hit struck in the head

No; not hit struck. That’s like TWICE!

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3 points

The police didn’t shoot him in the head. They were just doing their jobs as we asked them to and somehow that happened, total coincidence.

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