Monday, January 9, 2012

6,000 tickets for subway seat infractions


From the NY Times:

It is perhaps the most minor crime New Yorkers are routinely arrested for: sitting improperly on a subway seat. Seven years ago, rule 1050(7)(J) of the city’s transit code criminalized what was once simply bad etiquette: passengers putting their feet on a subway seat. They also cannot take up more than one seat if it interferes with other passengers’ comfort, nor can they block movement on a subway by doing something like standing too close to the doors.

Police officers handed out more than 6,000 tickets for these violations in 2011. But a $50 ticket would have been welcome compared with the trouble many passengers found themselves in; roughly 1,600 people like Mr. Peppers were arrested, sometimes waiting more than a day to be brought before a judge and released, according to statistics from district attorneys’ offices.

In some instances, passengers were arrested because they had outstanding warrants, or did not have photo identification. Some arrests were harder to explain, with no apparent cause other than the seat violation. In at least one case, the arrest led to deportation.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Let someone with a warrant go!? That's why Pete is dead!!!

Anonymous said...

Yet somehow the homeless bums never get ticketed for hogging subway seats.

Anonymous said...

Keep pounding away at these infractions - Mayor Gulliani started cracking down on petty infractions and reap enormous benefits from it and so did the people with lowered crime and safer streets.

FlushingRepresenter said...

Two things.

Here is a video of a man SMOKING CRACK on a number 2 train.

http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshhYUAbSs4beoRTK9i3

Secondly I've seen these quota hungry cops give tickets to people who WERE taking up two seats but on essentially what was an empty train, maybe 5 to see people on one of those late late night rides.

"They also cannot take up more than one seat if it interferes with other passengers’ comfort

I did not see the man who was arrested interfering with others comfort even tho he was taking up two seats.

Anonymous said...

Check out the #7 line.
It's a gold mine for fines...Asians eating in the cars and spilling their food allover.

Oh, but we don't want to offend the Asians do we?

They support too many pols' political campaigns.

But do issue summonses to other darker people of color.

They give nadda to the pols.

Anonymous said...

Ask Bloomberg about the 72 year old man who was arrested at the Rosevelt Avenue subway station last week for blocking stairs. He was on his way to the hospital for a screening for open heart surgery. The man has heart problems and respiratory problems from when he was a construction worker during 9/11. Supposedly, the man had no I.D, so the cops arrested him. He spent about 5 days handcuffed to a hospital bed in Jamaica Hospital under 24 hour police guard, and he was never in trouble before in his life. Supposedly, the cop was under presure from his superious to make an arrest that day. Is this the kind of enforcement we want in the subways?

Anonymous said...

"Yet somehow the homeless bums never get ticketed for hogging subway seats."

You might be surprised by this, but most of the homeless in NYC are not "bums". They are mostly people who have lost their jobs and then could not afford their rent, so they became homeless. I hope that other people are more compassionate to you should you ever experience the types of hardships that many homeless people have experienced.

"Asians eating in the cars and spilling their food allover."

I take the 7 train to and from work every day. I've never seen what you descibe happen on the 7 train. But I have seen many different types of people eating on the subway on various different subway lines. Most of these people are non-Asian.

Anonymous said...

Lets see some fat people get tickets, you know what I'm talking about, the HUGE women and men who can't help to take up 2 or 3 seats because of their enourmous girth. Lets give them some tickets too.

Anonymous said...

Give the No Pants Subway Riders tickets for skid marks.

Anonymous said...

>>Lets see some fat people get tickets, you know what I'm talking about, the HUGE women and men who can't help to take up 2 or 3 seats because of their enourmous girth. Lets give them some tickets too.

Asians are skinny - that's a fact.