Fortunately none of them died as far as I can find. Surgeons had to crack open the skull of the bystander they shot in the back of the head to relieve his brain swelling though. I hope he recovers because he’s gonna be set for life.
They spent 150 million on overtime for cops to stop fare evasion. How much were they losing in fares? I’m gonna go ahead and guess it wasn’t even a teeny fraction of that.
They spent 1500x more on enforcement than they could have ever recovered from fare evaders. Just like every single other monitoring and enforcement program for public services.
Has there ever been a single program like that which is actually a net positive? Fare enforcement, food stamps means testing, public services with drug screens, “welfare queen” check ups, means testing, etc. I’m not aware of a single instance where it wouldn’t have been cheaper just to let a few people get benefits that “didn’t deserve them” than putting these restrictions in place
But God’s forbid we let poor people have nice things, or just to do good things for our society. Goddamned toxic puritanicalism. …
Absolutely right. Brings to mind something I read a while ago which I will paraphrase.
“Liberals want everyone to get what they need even if a few cheat the system. Conservatives want nobody to get what they need if there’s a chance anyone will cheat the system.”
Somebody on Lemmy a while back asked about the phrase, “the cruelty is the point,” and whether it was true and fair. Well, here’s the evidence: The point is not a net gain on fare collections.
The fact that the numbers are public and they keep doing it proves it: The cruelty is the point.
I disagree, the poor would be worse off without public transit since else it’d be much harder for them to move around. In fact many if not most public transit systems are subsidized and operate at a loss.
The richer don’t use it and so care little, beyond the macro level that it benefits businesses and such.
Public transit never turns a profit, not because it’s bad business but simply down to the economics of providing affordable transit. In fact, fares recover such a small percentage of a public transit agency’s budget that there’s good arguments being made for making public transit fare free. Public transit is a net good for communities so making it as accessible to those who want or need it is important
I think you may have missed his point. He wasn’t arguing against public transit, just the fare. It should be free. For the reasons you yourself mentioned.
Just what I wrote above. There aren’t a lot of articles about it after the initial incident. Our media has the attention span of a frantic gnat with Level 11 ADHD so it’s not surprising.
Don’t worry there’s plenty of blame to go around in this fucked up system we’ve got.
But I agree with you. No matter what this guy did, these cops engineered an unnecessary confrontation and then shot innocent bystanders, the suspect, AND themselves. They are to blame. They are not qualified to use firearms in the performance of their duties because they lack good judgement.
I read the advert and just assumed, the suspect just tried to ran and they needlessly used guns to stop them instead of running after them or something like that?!
The suspect is not 100% blameless, he did hop the line, he was not following lawful commands, and he was holding a knife. Now that is a really sketchy situation because a knife can kill you real quick, real life is not like Hollywood. But he did not try to stab anyone with it and he was not threatening anyone. Cops love to talk about how a knife can kill you from 20 feet but that ain’t gonna happen when they have already drawn on him. So none of that validates their response. They could have easily backed up temporarily, called for backup, tried the tasers again, waited for him to calm down a bit, or 20 other things than unloading their guns in a crowded subway station. Idiotic. The ONLY reason they should have fired is if the suspect was attempting to harm someone. I hope they are fired and charged with negligence at the very least, attempted manslaughter sounds even better.
The sad thing is it wasn’t even crowded. There were like 3 people in the immediate vicinity, not counting suspect and cops- and they managed to hit 2 of them.
Not justifying the cops shooting up everything, but he 100% had a knife and was acting dangerously. They tried using tasers first which didn’t work.
There are videos. People who are saying that a man was murdered just over couple bucks of fare are purposefully leaving out some crucial details. I get it, but it’s dishonest.
It wasn’t NYPD, it was transit police. Not too uncommon in big cities for the transit system to have their own (real) police force, it solves some problems of jurisdiction when the transit system spans multiple cities and/or counties.
The statement they did put out about the poster was basically
“The shooting was not over skipping fare. But everytime someone skips fair we loss money and people are in danger”
NY transit starts getting complaints about an ad they have no idea about.
“No, m’mam, we don’t have a death penalty policy…no…no m’man, I don’t know what poster you saw…”
“but yes m’aam we did shoot and kill 4 human beings for cheating us out of the 2.90 fare”
Fortunately none of them died as far as I can find. Surgeons had to crack open the skull of the bystander they shot in the back of the head to relieve his brain swelling though. I hope he recovers because he’s gonna be set for life.
They spent 150 million on overtime for cops to stop fare evasion. How much were they losing in fares? I’m gonna go ahead and guess it wasn’t even a teeny fraction of that.
They spent 1500x more on enforcement than they could have ever recovered from fare evaders. Just like every single other monitoring and enforcement program for public services.
Has there ever been a single program like that which is actually a net positive? Fare enforcement, food stamps means testing, public services with drug screens, “welfare queen” check ups, means testing, etc. I’m not aware of a single instance where it wouldn’t have been cheaper just to let a few people get benefits that “didn’t deserve them” than putting these restrictions in place
But God’s forbid we let poor people have nice things, or just to do good things for our society. Goddamned toxic puritanicalism. …
Absolutely right. Brings to mind something I read a while ago which I will paraphrase.
“Liberals want everyone to get what they need even if a few cheat the system. Conservatives want nobody to get what they need if there’s a chance anyone will cheat the system.”
Somebody on Lemmy a while back asked about the phrase, “the cruelty is the point,” and whether it was true and fair. Well, here’s the evidence: The point is not a net gain on fare collections.
The fact that the numbers are public and they keep doing it proves it: The cruelty is the point.
public transit fares are a steeply regressive tax on the poor
I disagree, the poor would be worse off without public transit since else it’d be much harder for them to move around. In fact many if not most public transit systems are subsidized and operate at a loss.
The richer don’t use it and so care little, beyond the macro level that it benefits businesses and such.
Public transit never turns a profit, not because it’s bad business but simply down to the economics of providing affordable transit. In fact, fares recover such a small percentage of a public transit agency’s budget that there’s good arguments being made for making public transit fare free. Public transit is a net good for communities so making it as accessible to those who want or need it is important
I think you may have missed his point. He wasn’t arguing against public transit, just the fare. It should be free. For the reasons you yourself mentioned.
What were you able to find out about the cases? 👀
Just what I wrote above. There aren’t a lot of articles about it after the initial incident. Our media has the attention span of a frantic gnat with Level 11 ADHD so it’s not surprising.
Yeah I know what you mean. Thanks for the extra context that you were able to glean though.
That’s why Seattle largely doesn’t bother with fare enforcement and doesn’t even have turnstiles. It’s simply a waste of money and manpower.
Lolololololol no
He will sue, the state will settle for 20mil and then quietly cancel the settlement payment after people move on from the story.
That’s what they always do.
Well wait…can the NY transit be blamed for that, if it was NYPD?
That would be like if some guy stole a loaf of bread from a grocery store, so they call the cops, and the cop shoots the theif.
Do you blame the grocery store?
The vast majority of people who steal food from a grocery aren’t doing it out of malicious reasoning but simply for their and their families survival.
Using a systemic monopoly on violence to stop people from trying to non violently survive in a world that refuses to help them is always immoral.
We should be calling the cops on supermarket chains for hoarding and not sharing their exes of wealth with citizens who actually need it.
I think the word you were looking for was “excess.” What you wrote seems like an oddly specific kink for divorcees.
Its a happy little accident.
Homer: You know, Mr. Burns, you’re the richest guy I know. Way richer than Lenny.
Mr. Burns: Yes, but I’d trade it all for a little more
Don’t worry there’s plenty of blame to go around in this fucked up system we’ve got.
But I agree with you. No matter what this guy did, these cops engineered an unnecessary confrontation and then shot innocent bystanders, the suspect, AND themselves. They are to blame. They are not qualified to use firearms in the performance of their duties because they lack good judgement.
Wait… they did WHAT?!
I read the advert and just assumed, the suspect just tried to ran and they needlessly used guns to stop them instead of running after them or something like that?!
The suspect is not 100% blameless, he did hop the line, he was not following lawful commands, and he was holding a knife. Now that is a really sketchy situation because a knife can kill you real quick, real life is not like Hollywood. But he did not try to stab anyone with it and he was not threatening anyone. Cops love to talk about how a knife can kill you from 20 feet but that ain’t gonna happen when they have already drawn on him. So none of that validates their response. They could have easily backed up temporarily, called for backup, tried the tasers again, waited for him to calm down a bit, or 20 other things than unloading their guns in a crowded subway station. Idiotic. The ONLY reason they should have fired is if the suspect was attempting to harm someone. I hope they are fired and charged with negligence at the very least, attempted manslaughter sounds even better.
The sad thing is it wasn’t even crowded. There were like 3 people in the immediate vicinity, not counting suspect and cops- and they managed to hit 2 of them.
Not justifying the cops shooting up everything, but he 100% had a knife and was acting dangerously. They tried using tasers first which didn’t work.
There are videos. People who are saying that a man was murdered just over couple bucks of fare are purposefully leaving out some crucial details. I get it, but it’s dishonest.
Yes.
It wasn’t NYPD, it was transit police. Not too uncommon in big cities for the transit system to have their own (real) police force, it solves some problems of jurisdiction when the transit system spans multiple cities and/or counties.
The fun part is of the 4 people shot, only the one had skipped the fare. Two were bystanders, one was another cop.
So only three people got shot.
The statement they did put out about the poster was basically
“The shooting was not over skipping fare. But everytime someone skips fair we loss money and people are in danger”
While I feel a little bad about the folks no doubt receiving those calls, this is so deliciously amusing to contemplate.