MTA attendant at a Brooklyn subway station is using this method to punish fare evaders
He’s every turnstile jumper’s worst nightmare.
An MTA ticket booth attendant at a Brooklyn subway station wants to see brazen scofflaws punished for evading fares – so he announces them over the loud speaker.
He hopes his public address announcements — in which he describes each evader — gets the attention of cops patrolling the station.
“So I’m at the L train at Jefferson Street and why the guy in the booth is literally announcing people who are hopping the turnstile, and he’s like, ‘Girl in the green jacket, two girls coming down the stairs,’” a New Yorker named Trevona says in the beginning of an April 14 TikTok video titled “So MTA workers are announcing fare evaders now.”
Suddenly, the MTA employee’s voice is heard booming over the intercom: “MTA police officers … coming down the stairs, green jacket, blue jeans, fare evader!”
Then Trevona pans the camera to show two uniformed NYPD officers across the tracks, backs and feet liesurely leaning on the wall, seemingly unmoved by announcement.
One cop has his hands in his pockets, while the other appears to be on his cell phone.
“I thought [the police] was gonna run over but they laughing at [poop emoji] on they phone,” Trevona observes in the comments section of the 30-second video, which has amassed more than 80,000 views.
In response to the TikTok, an NYPD spokesperson said that police must observe violations of transit rules in order to address the perpetrator.
“There is no set cross-agency protocol for announcing observed fare evaders” between the MTA and NYPD, the spokesperson added.
“Station agents work closely with the NYPD, serving as eyes and ears to help improve overall rider experience,” MTA spokesperson Kayla Shults told The Post when asked about the attendant’s fare-enforcement strategy.
