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| DATE | 2025-03-09 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] NYC wants you to know that crime on the subway is
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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/03/nyregion/subway-shooting-brooklyn.html
BTW - NYC's claim that crime is down on the subway is complete crap..
nytimes.com
One Hopped Turnstile, 9 Police Bullets, 4 People Shot. Does It Add Up?
Ed Shanahan
15–19 minutes
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New York’s subway has been flooded with patrols to prevent crime and
stop fare evasion. One Sunday in Brooklyn, it all went wrong.
Video
transcript
transcript
Bodycam Footage Shows Police Shooting in N.Y.C. Subway
The New York Police Department released edited body camera footage that
shows the moments before and after officers shot a man who they said was
wielding a knife at a subway station in Brooklyn.
Officer: “Put it down.” Officer: “Put it down.” “Stop shooting!”
Officer: “Put the knife down. Put the knife down.” Officer: “Put it
down. Put it down.” Officer: “All right. Show me your hands.” Officer:
“Put the knife down.” “Leave me [profanity] alone.” Officer: “Put the
knife down.” “Leave me alone.” “Put the knife down. Put the knife down.
Put the knife down. Put that down. Put it down.” “Stop shooting.”
Officer: “Put it down.” Officer: “Put the knife down.” Officer: “Put it
down.” “Don’t touch me.” Officer: “Put it down. Put it down. Put it
down. Put it down. Put the knife down. Put the knife down.” Officer:
“Taser! Taser! Taser!” [inaudible] Officer: “Taser! Taser! Taser!”
[gunshots] Officer: “Put it down!” Officer: “Put it down!” “I’m shot.
I’m shot.” Officer: “Put it down!” Officer: “Put it down!” [inaudible]
Officer: “Put it down!” Officer: “Shots fired. Shots fired.” Officer:
“Put it down!” Officer: “Put it down! Put it down!”
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The New York Police Department released edited body camera footage that
shows the moments before and after officers shot a man who they said was
wielding a knife at a subway station in Brooklyn.CreditCredit...New York
Police Department
March 3, 2025
A man coming home from an overseas trip. Another on his way to work. A
woman off to a celebratory dinner.
They were three New Yorkers riding the subway on a Sunday afternoon in
September, not knowing they would soon end up in a hail of police
bullets meant for Derell Mickles.
Mr. Mickles, 38, had slipped into the Sutter Avenue L station in
Brooklyn without paying. Two police officers had followed him to the
elevated platform, catching a glimpse of a knife in his hand. Within
minutes, the police would shoot two of the passengers, Mr. Mickles and
one of the officers.
The harrowing episode was a stark example of how even seemingly normal
commutes can erupt in a flash of violence in a transit system officials
have struggled to safeguard for the millions of New Yorkers who rely on
it every day.
Image
Two men in Army uniforms, with one holding a large gun, stand in a
subway station near police officers how are checking a rider’s bag.
Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul have flooded the subway stations
with officers and soldiers as part of an effort to reduce subway
crime.Credit...Adam Gray/Getty Images
The surge has focused partly on fare evasion, which cost the transit
system as much as $800 million last year and which officials like the
mayor have framed as a tripwire for more serious crimes. Police
officials said officers seized two dozen guns and about 500 knives
during fare evasion stops in just the first nine months of 2024.
But critics say that the fare evasion crackdown is misguided and too
costly for what it recoups in revenue. And when it leads to a police
encounter that escalates, as it did that Sunday, Sept. 15, the effort
can quickly turn dangerous for the New Yorkers it is supposed to protect.
‘Now Arriving’
Image
In a screenshot from surveillance footage, Derell Mickles is hopping
over a turnstile with a police officer stands to the side.
Surveillance camera footage from the Sutter Avenue subway station showed
Derell Mickles hopping over a turnstile as two officers stood nearby.
They followed him.
Even on a weekday, the Sutter Avenue L train stop is among the least
busy of the city’s 472 subway stations. On this day, only a few riders
trickled in.
When Mr. Mickles entered the station, Officers Edmund Mays and Alex Wong
were near the turnstiles as part of the broader effort to reduce crime
in the subway. Officer Mays had been with the Police Department for 10
years; Officer Wong for six. Neither had faced significant accusations
of misconduct on the job.
Mr. Mickles hopped a turnstile, backtracked when the officers confronted
him and quickly left, surveillance video shows. But less than 10 minutes
later, he returned and slid through an open emergency gate.
The police officers followed him upstairs to the platform, hurrying past
other riders, according to footage from their body-worn cameras.
“Careful,” Officer Mays said to his partner about halfway up. “He has a
knife in his hand.”
Image
A close-up screenshot of surveillance footage showing what appears to be
a knife in the right hand of Mickles.
The police did not seem to be aware that Mickles had a knife until the
second time he entered the subway station.
A Manhattan-bound L train was about a minute away. David LaFauci, a
systems administrator on his way home from a trip to Italy, was on it.
So was Kerry Ann Jahalal. She had turned 26 the day before, and she was
going to Manhattan with her husband for dinner to mark the occasion.
Gregory Delpeche was there, too, riding to his job at Woodhull Medical
Center.
On the platform, Mr. Mickles began walking toward the far end as the
officers tailed him. “I’m going to make you kill me” if you mess with
me, he muttered loudly enough for them to hear.
He stopped, walked toward the platform edge with his hands behind his
back, and turned to face the officers.
A voice sounded over the station’s speaker system: “The next
Manhattan-bound L train is now arriving.”
It was 3:06 p.m.
‘Don’t Touch Me’
Image
Body-camera footage showing Derell Mickles standing with his arms behind
his back on a subway platform as one officer points at him.
The officers yelled at Mr. Mickles to show them his hands as a
Manhattan-bound L train pulled into the subway station at 3:06 p.m.
What happened next, captured by officers’ body-worn cameras and
described by a witness in interviews, lasted barely more than a minute.
3:06:10
“Sir, I need to see your hands,” Officer Mays says.
Mr. Mickles shakes his head.
“Drop the knife,” Officer Wong says, the first of more than 30 such
commands.
“I’m not dropping nothing,” Mr. Mickles says. “Shoot me.”
“I’m not shooting you, sir,” Officer Mays says.
3:06:22
The Manhattan-bound train pulls in.
“Leave me alone,” Mr. Mickles says over and over, extending his left arm
imploringly.
The officers tell him to put the knife down.
3:06:30
Mr. Mickles yells that the knife is down, but it’s unclear whether that
is true as he moves toward the officers. “Shoot me!” he says.
As the train comes to a stop behind him, he steps backward. When the
doors open, he backs into a car.
“Don’t touch me,” he says. “What is wrong with you all?”
Officer Wong looks toward the front of the train and yells for the
conductor to hold it in the station.
Mr. Mickles walks toward the far end of the car as Officer Mays shadows
him from the platform. Soon, both officers are inside the car — as is
Mr. LaFauci.
‘Put Down the Knife’
Image
A screenshot from body-camera footage showing both officers pointing
yellow Tasers at Derell Mickles on a subway train.
Both officers fired their Tasers at Mr. Mickles, though it’s unclear
whether the shots affected him.
As Mr. Mickles and the officers on the L train yell at one another, Mr.
LaFauci’s immediate reaction is not fear but annoyance. He just wants to
go home.
In his mind, he says later, the situation will soon be resolved, and the
train will start moving again.
He is wrong.
3:06:50
Mr. Mickles, his right hand still behind him, curses as Officer Mays
approaches.
In the seat closest to them is a man in a red shirt: Mr. Delpeche, on
his way to work.
Get away, Officer Mays tells Mr. Delpeche as he waves his arm. Mr.
Delpeche, 50, walks toward the far end of the car and, eventually, onto
the platform.
By now both officers are facing Mr. Mickles.
“Put down the knife.”
“Shoot me.”
“Put down the knife.”
“Shoot me.”
The officers take out their Tasers. Mr. LaFauci, 34, looks at an older
man with a mustache and a tweed coat sitting across from him. They make
eye contact, and the older man rises to get off the train. Mr. LaFauci
stays put.
3:06:58
One of the officers fires his Taser at Mr. Mickles outside the frame of
the body-camera footage.
Mr. Mickles has been hit, but it’s unclear whether the prongs have
penetrated his shirt or skin. He walks toward the officers. This time,
both fire.
“Taser! Taser! Taser!” Officer Mays shouts.
Mr. LaFauci later says he thought it was an odd thing to yell after
firing. The thin copper Taser wires hang in the air in front of him.
Still, he is not afraid.
Mr. Mickles, swatting the Taser prongs away, steps onto the platform and
runs back toward the stairway. Officer Mays tries to head him off, his
partner behind him.
Mr. Delpeche, the man in the red shirt, is standing on the narrow
platform next to a few other passengers. Mr. LaFauci is still on the train.
3:07:12
Mr. Mickles races at Officer Mays, who curses and backs up as his
partner runs toward them.
3:07:15
Suddenly, Mr. Mickles stops near the open door of a car next to the one
he was just in. He is facing Officer Wong several feet away. Officer
Mays is farther down the platform. There are at least three people
inside the car. One is Ms. Jahalal, on her way to her birthday dinner.
The officers have switched from Tasers to guns. They begin shooting.
3:07:18
Officer Wong fires six shots. Officer Mays fires three. Passengers
scream and rush for safety. Mr. Mickles, clutching the knife, takes a
couple of steps and crumples to the train floor.
“Put it down!” the officers yell. “Put it down! Put it down!”
3:07:21
“I’m shot!” Officer Mays shouts as he stands across the platform from
Mr. Mickles.
In front of him, Mr. Mickles sits upright.
Both officers, guns drawn, continue to shout at him to put the knife down.
3:07:28
Officer Mays is yelling into his radio.
One of the bullets has hit him under the arm, and at least one is in Mr.
Mickles’s abdomen. Another lodged in Ms. Jahalal’s left leg as she ran
from the gunfire. Mr. Delpeche, who had moved as the police instructed,
has been shot in the head.
It has been less than three minutes since Mr. Mickles slipped through
the station gate.
‘A Violent Act’
Image
A screenshot of body-camera footage showing Derell Mickles laying on the
floor of a subway car, partly upright, as an officer points a gun at him.
Mr. Mickles crumpled into a train car after the officers shot him. They
fired a total of nine shots, and he was hit in the abdomen.
A subway ride costs $2.90. But the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority, which oversees the system, estimates that at least 10 percent
of riders do not pay.
The mayor and other officials, in a nod to the “broken windows” model of
policing, argue that being tough on fare evasion has helped reduce crime
in the subway. But it is difficult, if not impossible, to prove how many
crimes are avoided.
“Criminals don’t pay to ride, and stopping them at the gate makes us all
safer,” Demetrius Crichlow, the head of New York City Transit, the
authority division that runs the subway and buses, said in November
after a fare evader was found with a loaded gun.
But the crackdown appears to mostly affect people of color, like Mr.
Mickles: Of the roughly 2,800 people arrested on charges of fare evasion
in last year’s third quarter, just 5 percent were white, according to
Police Department data. Of the roughly 36,000 issued summonses for the
offense, 16 percent were white.
“Cracking down on fare evasion has, to a large extent, amounted to
cracking down in the highest-poverty station areas, which also tend to
be in predominantly Black or Hispanic neighborhoods,” said Harold
Stolper, a Columbia University economist.
The Sutter Avenue L station, which serves the mostly Black and Hispanic
Brownsville neighborhood, had the second-highest rate of fare-evasion
enforcement per ridership last year, according to Mr. Stolper’s research.
The mayor and police leaders insist that the Sutter Avenue shooting was
not about fare enforcement but about a person who “had a clear mission
to carry out a violent act,” as the mayor said at a news conference.
Mr. Mickles had a history of substance abuse and a criminal record that
included convictions for burglary and selling drugs. Since 2014, he has
spent a total of a little more than a year in city jails spread across
four short stints. There is no indication the officers knew any of that
when they chose to follow him.
Some people, like Mr. Adams, saw in his history and demeanor that day —
and his quick brandishing of a blade — a man who was out looking for
trouble. Others, like Mr. LaFauci, have wondered whether he would have
just gone on his way had he not been approached by the police.
A Long Walk Home
Image
David LaFauci stands on the platform next to a subway train in a dark coat.
David LaFauci was on the subway on his way home from a trip when he got
caught up in a confrontation between the police and a man the officers
said had a knife.Credit...Juan Arredondo for The New York Times
After the police officers stopped firing at Mr. Mickles, Mr. LaFauci
looked over and saw Mr. Delpeche on the floor of the subway car, his
legs extended out onto the platform as if he had fallen backward. He
took a few steps toward him and saw a halo of blood pooled around his
head. Mr. LaFauci grabbed his backpack and finally got off the train.
He saw people carrying someone who appeared to be unconscious down the
platform.
He felt his antipathy toward the officers rising.
“I’m not the most pro-police guy,” he acknowledged in an interview later.
In May 2020, Mr. LaFauci protested in Brooklyn after the police in
Minnesota killed George Floyd. He later claimed in a lawsuit against the
city that the officers had broken his hand with a baton before arresting
him. The Brooklyn district attorney declined to prosecute, and the city
settled with him for $115,000 without admitting wrongdoing.
This time, he had not been injured physically, but he was disoriented.
Had it been 20 minutes since the gunshots rang out? More? He went down
to the street, and an officer told him the block was being cleared, so
he began the hour-plus walk home, even though friends he texted
suggested he call an Uber. He flipped off police cruisers as they raced
past him. Several times, he said, he broke down in tears.
‘A Long Road Ahead’
John Chell, the Police Department’s chief of patrol at the time, called
the shooting “a tragic situation.” Mr. Adams offered his sympathy, too.
“No one wants to see innocent people get hurt,” he said.
But the mayor, a former police captain, also praised the officers for
their “great level of restraint,” and he joined police leaders in saying
that the shooting had been warranted because Mr. Mickles presented a
risk to the officers and others. The police investigation is continuing.
As a result of his injuries from the shooting, Mr. Mickles had surgery
to remove a large section of his small bowel and part of his stomach, as
well as to repair 15 bullet holes in his arms, legs and abdominal wall,
according to a city doctor’s report. He was charged with aggravated
assault on a police officer, attempted assault, menacing a police
officer, criminal possession of a weapon and theft of services. He has
pleaded not guilty.
Officer Mays, who was struck near his armpit, returned to duty almost
immediately.
Mr. Delpeche, who needed emergency brain surgery, has made significant
strides in his recovery, but “as far as being normal, it’s a long road
ahead,” said Leighton Lee, a friend. A guardian has been appointed for
him because of his injuries, and a lawyer hired by relatives has filed
court papers indicating plans to sue the city for $80 million.
“The fact that he’s alive is amazing,” said Nicholas Liakas, the lawyer.
As for Ms. Jahalal, the bullet in her leg will be there forever,
according to a notice of claim she and her husband, Daniel Jahalal,
filed saying that they plan to sue the city for $70 million.
The police had said Ms. Jahalal was “grazed” by a bullet. According to
her notice of claim, her injury prevents her from walking normally and
has kept her from working. She appeared in a production of “Romeo and
Juliet” while attending a small Brooklyn high school and studied as an
English major at Lehman College for several years.
Mr. LaFauci, too, has signaled his intention to sue the city. In his
case, the claim is for emotional distress: He says he is now scared to
ride the subway, although like any New Yorker, he does when he has to.
Reporting was contributed by Ana Ley, Hurubie Meko and Wesley Parnell.
Sheelagh McNeill and Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
A version of this article appears in print on March 9, 2025, Section MB,
Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: A Chaotic Day That Fed
Subway Fears. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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