Put your feet up on an empty NYC subway car, go to jail
NY Times on Saturday will have this story "Relax, if You Want, but Don’t Put Your Feet Up" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/07/nyregion/minor-offense-on-ny-subway-can-bring-ticket-or-handcuffs.html?pagewanted=all). It opens with the anecdote of a man who was jailed for 12 hours and missed work simply because he put his feet on another seat in an empty subway car. In the article, he said: "I can see if it was rush hour, but there was no one else on the train. Why not just say, ‘Put your feet down’? I lost a day of work because of their pettiness."
The article further explains: "Seven years ago, rule 1050(7)(J) of the city’s transit code criminalized what was once simply bad etiquette: passengers putting their feet on a subway seat. They also cannot take up more than one seat if it interferes with other passengers’ comfort, nor can they block movement on a subway by doing something like standing too close to the doors." Also: "In interviews, public defenders who represent many of the passengers arrested say their clients tend to be among the working class, often kitchen workers who are exhausted as they begin or end long shifts at Manhattan restaurants. Lawyers say many of the cases originate on the F train at the Rockefeller Center stop."
Yep, police profiling at work once again. "Steven Banks, the chief attorney for the city’s Legal Aid Society, which represents many riders arrested for seat violations, suggested that police officers who make arrests for seat violations are driven by the prospect of overtime pay and the pressure to produce arrests periodically...One police officer who works in the transit system acknowledged that there were a lot of “petty arrests,” but he said that officers were under pressure from supervisors to “bring in one collar” each month. The officer, speaking anonymously, was generally disdainful of making arrests for seat violations, but pointed out that stopping people on these charges allowed officers to check them for outstanding warrants."
One diabetic man who put his leg up for an insulin injection and then was denied insulin while in jail, and the man later got $150k from NYC.
Closing the article is the case of one arrest leading to the deportation this year of someone who had a deportation order put on him back in 2002. The deported man worked at Midtown Manhattan French restaurant Bistro Vendome. But no word whether Bistro Vendome was punished for hiring the immigrant in the first place.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Unless of course you have joined the 1%, at which time you get your "get out of jail free" card.
