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Smart Guy Gets Rounded Up in Late Night Subway Sting
By
John Del Signore
Published Jul 7, 2009
Modified Jul 7, 2009
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By
John Del Signore
Published Jul 7, 2009
Modified Jul 7, 2009
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Upstate writer John Kuhner was visiting New York (his hometown) last week when his late night subway ride to Queens got even more tedious than usual. Around 5:30 a.m., a plainclothes cop entered his subway car at Roosevelt Avenue and ordered all seven male riders off the train. Like the others, Kuhner had made the mistake of putting his feet up, which is punishable with a $50 fine. He writes, "We were received by a group of police officers, six in all... who demanded our IDs and said they were going to run a check on us. It took forever for these six cops to get our names through to their computer, and the entire time all seven of us became more and more annoyed and difficult... I began to harangue the officers: 'This is ridiculous. The Law is for the resolution of grievances between citizens... This is a shameless revenue grab, and that’s why you, officer, won’t look me in the eye or even respond.'" Kuhner goes off on the cops like Patrick Henry on his sixth Sparks, and you can probably imagine how far his impassioned rhetoric got him. Read the whole indignant story here, which ends with one commenter sagely urging Kuhner to "take solace in the fact that by challenging this ticket... you will ultimately cost the city more than the $50 that they fined you."
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John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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