NYPD Officers Shoot 4 People— Including One Officer and 2 Bystanders— over an Alleged $2.90 Fare Evasion

NYC— Yesterday around 3pm, two NYPD officers shot and injured four people— including one of the officers and two bystanders— over an alleged $2.90 fare evasion.

The incident, which took place in a Brooklyn subway station, is being called “friendly fire” by Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey.

“I don’t like to use that term friendly fire, but absolutely we believe at this time that our officers were the only ones who discharged weapons at this time,” Maddrey stated. “I don’t know if that’ll change. So everyone that was struck this afternoon, we believe, was by our officers.”

According to reports, two officers witnessed a man enter the Subway station gate without paying a fare. They followed him up three flights of stairs. Officers allege that the man, who has not yet been publicly named, muttered, “I’m going to kill you if you don’t stop following me.” The police department has since announced that the man has a long history of mental illness.

The officers asked the man to stop, but he continued onto the train, which had just pulled up. Officers followed him onto the train and deployed their Tasers. The man accused of fare evasion exited the train and returned to the station platform, still standing.

The officers reported that they were made aware the man had a knife in his pocket. The man began to approach the officers quickly. Both officers fired multiple rounds hitting the man, who was apprehended shortly thereafter, several times. He is being treated at the hospital and is in stable condition.

The officers’ bullets also struck a 49 year old man in the head and grazed a 26 year old woman. The man is now in critical condition. One of the officers was struck in the armpit as well and is expected to make a full recovery.

The department released a cropped image of the alleged knife, but the knife itself was not recovered at the scene.

This police-involved shooting comes just six months after New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced her 5-point subway safety plan— which included deploying 750 members of the National Guard, hundreds of additional MTA police, new security cameras, and bag check procedures.

Do you feel safer yet?