New Yorkers at the Franklin Avenue subway station in Brooklyn had a particularly terrifying rush hour commute on Friday. As captured in a now-viral video, NYPD officers swarmed a subway car to arrest a man in a red hat. From the video, it appears that about a dozen officers, some with guns drawn, approached the man as the subway car emptied
We don’t know what happened prior to start of the video. However, in the video, the man in the hat is shown sitting on the train with his arms raised. He has no weapon in sight, and it’s later confirmed that he was unarmed the whole time. Why was he being pursued so heavily? Terrorism? Abduction? Sexual violence? No.
New York TV station NBC 4 reported that the NYPD clarified on Saturday that the officers were responding to “an alert for a male with a gun.” Later, the police determined that he did not have a gun. He was ultimately charged with “theft of services.” It’s not clear what the charge entails in this case. Twitter users are speculating it was subway fare evasion, but that’s not confirmed.
Here’s the original tweet that went viral.
Here’s how the NYPD reportedly replied to a request for more information on the incident:
No matter what this person allegedly stole, this level of response is disturbing. It’s also clearly terrifying for everyone else on the subway, as countless people bolt from the scene. While we can’t know what might have happened if people hadn’t had their phones out and recorded the incident, it’s safe to say that bystanders recording incidents like these helps keep police accountable for their actions.
Here’s what people on Twitter had to say in response to the video, which has been viewed over one million times:
This man was not killed by police. The fact that this reality—he was not killed by police while sitting cooperatively—is a relief is an obvious statement on the frequent course of events in such situations. This time it may have gone “right,” but it’s still dangerous—and traumatizing for everyone involved.