NYPD Whistleblowers Say Subway Homeless Program Punishes Poverty

NEW YORK CITY — Even cops think the city's subway policing programs are discriminatory.

A Bill de Blasio administration program that has cops hauling in homeless people caught violating subway rules is hated among a group of NYPD whistleblowers who say it criminalizes poverty and encourages quotas.

"What the public isn't being told is that homeless people are now being handcuffed, put over the radio as an arrest, and then brought into our transit commands," the anonymous cops wrote in a letter released Tuesday.

"We are unjustly criminalizing individuals who have done nothing worse than the average person in the subway all because they have no home."

The cops' letter, sent to the advocate groups Human.nyc and the Coalition for the Homeless, claims homeless people are being bullied into accepting services they don't want by cops who have to enforce a program they don't support. Human.nyc wrote that it had verified the letter's source, but doesn't mention how.

The letter says it was written by officers in the NYPD Transit Bureau.

"We are being boldly told how many to bring in a day," the cops wrote. "The Diversion Program has become an obsession."

The NYPD Subway Diversion Program, first launched in June 2019, mandates that transit cops issue summonses to people without permanent addresses caught violating subway rules — such as stretching out on several seats or sitting on station steps.

The letter, which doesn't say how many NYPD officers it represents, states:"Can you imagine if we arrested someone in a business suit, on their commute home, with their briefcase on the seat next to them and happened to have forgotten their ID that day? There would be an uproar."

The program is supposed to help connect homeless New Yorkers to Department of Homeless Services assistance, but the cops argued it saddles the people they're supposed to help with summonses they cannot afford.

"They are being threatened to accept services and told that if they refuse, they will get a ticket, which most can't afford to pay, or go to jail," the cops wrote. "It isn't about helping them."

Homeless and transit advocates, the Legal Aid Society and the New York City Police Benevolent Association threw support behind the anonymous NYPD whistleblowers.

"Once again, New York City police officers are acting as a Band-Aid to co cover up another of Mayor de Blasio's failures," said PBA president Pat Lynch. "If you're upset about homelessness on the subway or the treatment of homeless people by the NYPD, point your anger at City Hall."

NYPD Transit police and the DHS defended the program in a oversight meeting in City Hall Tuesday, hours after the damning letter was published, testifying that homeless people were not arrested but connected to shelter and vital assistance.

"It's our job, we have to enforce the rules," NYPD Chief of Transit Edward Delatorre said. "We are not looking to criminalize anybody, we're looking to create an offramp."

Brooklyn City Council Member Carlos Menchaca, a Democrat, earned a round of applause when he countered the NYPD had no role to play in connecting homeless people to services.

"A person with a hammer is going to see everything as a nail," Menchaca said. "My idea is to remove the NYPD somehow."

But Council Member Mark Gjonaj, a Bronx Democrat, said he had to support direct action.

"We can't expect NYPD to turn a blind eye," Gjonaj said. "We cannot worry about civil rights when someone doesn't know they're a detriment to themselves."

Read the full letter here.