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Man Ticketed For Subway Spitting Turns Out To Be Murder Suspect
By
Ben Yakas
Published Feb 26, 2016
Modified Feb 26, 2016
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Feb 26, 2016
Modified Feb 26, 2016
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A man busted by cops for spitting on the subway platform turned out to be wanted by police for a murder in Brooklyn last November.
Police say that the suspect, whose name hasn't been released yet, was spotted by transit cops at the Stillwell Avenue subway station around 11:30 p.m. Thursday. According to the News, one of the officers thought he looked familiar, and started combing through wanted posters on his smartphone.
As he was doing that, the suspect apparently spit on the platform, and the cops moved in to give him a quality-of-life ticket. They looked up his name while doing so, and learned the suspect was wanted in connection to the Nov. 20th, 2015, killing of Jean-Claude Bernagene.
Bernagene was found lying on the ground in the front yard of a residence on New York Avenue in East Flatbush with gunshot wounds to his chest, right knee, and right wrist. The News later reported that Bernagene had been running a gambling operation, and it is believed the suspect had been attempted to rob him when the incident occurred.
Last fall, a man who was approached by police because he had his feet up on a subway seat was arrested after cops looked up his name and found out he was wanted in connection with a months-old murder.
This latest arrest comes as the MTA has started to make a list of the worst repeat subway offenders and pass their names off to the NYPD and the city's district attorneys, as a way to essentially ban "career criminals" and reduce subway violence.
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MTA
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subway spitting
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Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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