This is probably the craziest time in New York City politics in a while. Last week, the FBI seized the cell phones and computers of top officials in Mayor Eric Adams’s administration, as part of an ongoing corruption investigation. His police commissioner resigned as a result. Unrelatedly, an internal report revealed that Department of Education employees took their families on trips to Disneyworld that were intended for homeless kids. Two former fire chiefs were indicted Monday for bribery and corruption. This comes on top of earlier investigations related to the Turkish government. It’s obvious to everyone that the federal government has something massive to drop on Adams or people very close to him — we just don’t know yet what it is.
And then there’s Sunday’s mass shooting on the subway — by cops.
After evading the $2.90 subway fare and then wielding a knife against them, police confronted and ultimately shot Derell Mickles, age thirty-seven, in the stomach, at the Sutter Avenue L train stop in Brownsville, one of the poorest — and, some residents say, overpoliced — neighborhoods in Brooklyn. By the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) own admission, the officers also shot three other people in the melee: one of their own officers, plus two civilians.
All this over $2.90. In many countries and municipalities around the world — and on some bus lines in New York City — public transit is free. There are many reasons why that makes sense, but as we can see, giving police officers fewer reasons to open fire on the citizenry is a compelling one. Even a National Public Radio host was moved to interject, “Wow, I mean, I have to say this does seem like quite an outsized outcome for someone who didn’t pay a $2.90 subway fare.” Under Mayor Adams, the city has spent millions more on cops in the subway, issuing tens of thousands more summonses for fare evasion.
Mickles apparently threatened the police when they came…
La suite est à lire sur: jacobin.com
Auteur: Liza Featherstone
