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Cop Lets Sleeping Man Hog Three Subway Seats During Rush Hour
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Mar 6, 2012
Modified Mar 6, 2012
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Mar 6, 2012
Modified Mar 6, 2012
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Lady Justice is "blind" because she doesn't care if you're injured or if it's 5 a.m.: You may not rest your leg on an empty subway seat. But one police officer recently took this blindness thing too literally, according to a tipster who passed along these photos. They were infuriated that a cop with the 88th Precinct stood on a packed A train at 7:15 p.m. last night and "did absolutely nothing while some vagrant slept on 3 seats" a few feet away. So is it more important to enforce this law in the middle of the night when there are plenty of empty seats?
Our tipster got on the Brooklyn-bound train at Canal, and said the officer (whose name we're withholding) got off at Hoyt/Schermerhorn, so he may have been off-duty and just didn't feel like pulling out his summons pad. "It was also too damned crowded to reach [the officer] from where i was crammed," the tipster said. "Although I definitely made eye contact with the cop and I know other people were pissed around me." Maybe check Missed Opportunities For Law Enforcement? And would the sleepy man have been so lucky on March 25?
We asked an NYPD spokesman what the protocol is for officers, on-duty or off, responding to quality-of-life issues such as this, and whether or not they have to be with the Transit Bureau to write a citation. He directed us to the NYPD press office's email account, which is manned by Cthulhulix, Lord Of The Nonresponsive Inbox, where our request will presumably dissolve once it reaches the impenetrable quickening.
Perhaps someone should have just moved the man's leg for him, or you'd think one of the straphangers' butlers would have done the same.
Tagged
88th precinct
lady justice
leg-resters
MTA
nypd
quotas
subway
subway seat
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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