To: Govenor Cuomo and MTA
Gov. Cuomo: Stop the fare evasion crackdown and invest in our subways
Instead of investing the millions needed for our subway, Governor Cuomo wants to invest in 500 police officers to continue his MTA fare evasion crackdown which has resulted in the excessive use of force against low-income Black and brown communities. Poverty is not a crime. The fare evasion crackdown must stop immediately, and Governor Cuomo should invest in fixing the subways, not hiring 500 new officers.
Why is this important?
Last week, multiple videos and photos showed police officers tasering, tackling, holding down, and in some cases punching Black and brown people in the subway.
This is the result of an overly aggressive and unjust fare evasion crackdown by Governor Cuomo and the MTA, which has primarily targeted Black and brown people in low-income communities. And it comes on the heels of the announcement that the governor and the MTA intend to put 500 more state police—without body cameras—into the NYC subway system.
As part of the crackdown, NYPD officers have been stationed in large numbers outside of train stations in low-income, Black, and brown neighborhoods. This comes as no surprise, as it follows the pattern of Black and brown communities across the country being surveilled, targeted, and subjected to police abuse and excessive violence.
But this excessive use of force by the police in the subway must stop immediately—which won’t happen if Governor Cuomo and the MTA move forward with their current plans.
In one image, police officers draw their guns on a young Black man in a crowded subway car for presumably having evaded a $2.75 fare. In another, an officer is holding down a young Black man who has been tasered. We should not taser or arrest someone for failing to pay a $2.75 train fare. We do not need more state police with less accountability patrolling our subways.
What we need is for Governor Cuomo and the MTA to stop criminalizing poverty and to stop trying to raise money for our dilapidated train system on the backs of low-income communities and communities of color. We need Governor Cuomo to take the funding planned for hiring 500 new officers and invest it, and millions more, in fixing our broken train system and making it more reliable and accessible.
The subway is the lifeblood of this city and we need it to work for the millions of low-income and working class riders who rely on it every day to get to work, to school, to the doctor and back home again.