Video Showing Cops Forcing Man From Subway Station Sparks Outrage

EAST VILLAGE, NY — A video showing cops stopping a straphanger from taking the subway apparently for putting his bag on an empty seat has spurred outrage amid rising scrutiny of increased police presence in the system's stations.

A man sitting on a bench at the First Avenue L train station wasn't permitted to board the train about 11 p.m. Tuesday, according to a witness and video she filmed.

The video spurred angry reactions from activist groups and politicians.

Cops and the man argued over why he was being ejected from the station for about 15 minutes, witness Erin Quinlan said. The man, who identified himself to Quinlan as 45-year-old Miguel Pumarejo, said he had paid his fare.

"It's not fair. I paid $3," Pumarejo said in the video. "My body's not so well."

"I was resting. I fell asleep on the bench and occupied more than one space," he said on the video, suspecting his offense was sleeping on a bench in the subway while he waited for a train — which can be considered by the MTA as "disorderly conduct" — or taking up a second seat with his bag.

"I'm asking you — is that what I did wrong?"

An officer responds that he had already been told his offense, according to the video. An officer declined to take his ID when Pumarejo said he'd rather take a ticket and be able to continue on the train, the video shows.

"You're not taking him into custody, so what is this? Why are you kicking him out?" Quinlan, a freelance journalist who took the video, told Patch.

"He paid," Quinlan said. "He's going a few avenues over. Leave him alone. It's ridiculous."

When the train arrived after about 15 minutes, officers held the doors open for another 5 to 10 minutes trying to get Pumarejo off the train — with other L train riders yelling at the officers to either arrest him or let him be, Quinlan said.

"People were getting pretty heated, like 'What the f--- are you doing?" Quinlan said.

A second officer at the station physically forced him off the train, the video shows.

The New York Police Department said officers were assigned to address "quality of life conditions" along L train stops and saw the man sleeping on a bench at the First Avenue station about 10:15 p.m. Tuesday, according to a statement the department sent to Patch.

Officers woke him up and he said he was waiting for a Brooklyn-bound train, so they left him and continued work, the NYPD said.

More than an hour later, cops returned to find him still sleeping on the bench and "used their discretion and decided to remove" him from the station, the department said.

The NYPD confirmed the man was not arrested or given a summons after he was ejected from the transit system.

"The NYPD is committed to the safety of the nearly 6 million riders who use the subway each day," the department said in a statement. "Our Police Officers continue to reduce crime past already record lows, and work to improve the quality of life for all New Yorkers."

The video drew scrutiny amid growing protests and outrage over increased police presence in subway stations. The group Decolonize This Place, which organized a recent protest where thousands jumped turnstiles and protested in Downtown Brooklyn after videos of two violent arrests of teens circulated, said the latest L train video is "further evidence" that the city and police are "escalating their war on the poor and (black, indigenous and people of color)."

City and state officials recently assigned some 500 officers to crackdown on fare evasion on subways and buses.

The Center for Popular Democracy's organizing arm, CPD Action, wrote on Twitter, "NYPD will violate if you can't pay the MTA subway fare. And they will violate if you CAN pay."

His "crime," the organization suspected, was, "Putting his bag on an empty chair during quiet late night (sic)."

A Lower Manhattan assembly member said, "This doesn't seem to make sense."

"This man paid fare and was sitting and waiting and wasn't allowed to sit and wait and couldn't take the train either?" Assembly Member Yuh-Line Niou wrote in a tweet. "Am I missing something?"

A congressional candidate on Manhattan's east side, Lauren Ashcraft, called the scene "harassment of a man whose (sic) was waiting for the train and minding his own business."

This article has been updated with additional information from the New York Police Department.