OP-ED: Mayor Adams, accused of millions in fraud, defends killing for $2.90
It is clearer than ever that increased police presence on the subway does not keep New Yorkers safe. Earlier this month, NYPD officers opened fire at the Sutter Ave L train station in Brownsville, a predominantly Black neighborhood, shooting four people over one rider's alleged fare evasion. The gunfire hit one bystander, Gregory Delpeche, in the head while he was commuting to his decades-long job at a public hospital, leaving him with brain damage . Eric Adams has continued to defend the officers for their protection of the $2.90 subway fare, which is especially disturbing and ironic now that the mayor himself has been charged for accepting $10 million in illegal campaign contributions . The NYPD officers chose to escalate this situation, and made it abundantly clear they were not there to protect the physical safety of transit riders, but rather the subway fare that is nearly 3.5 million times less than Adams's fraudulent use of public funds.
Increased militarization of the subway does nothing to keep riders safe. In fact, it seems like every decision made by Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul is designed to do just the opposite, with Hochul even proposing a mask ban on the subway that puts riders' health at risk. New Yorkers have had enough, and we know the real reasons why some MTA riders enter without paying: poverty, lost MetroCards, and limits on school transit passes.
Over the past year, city and state leadership have used fearmongering to expand law enforcement and surveillance on the MTA, from Adams launching faulty metal detectors by scandal-plagued gun detection vendor Evolv to spending tens of thousands of dollars to trial Knightscope's K5 robot. Last year, S.T.O.P. revealed that the MTA contracts with the artificial intelligence surveillance firm Awaait to monitor subway fare evasion.
Adams, who currently faces five criminal charges , says people who can't pay their subway fare are entering the system to commit crimes —but this simply isn't true. In 2022, the number of violent crimes committed per 1 million subway rides was one ; since then, that number has only continued to fall. Despite that finding, the NYPD has issued more than 70,000 tickets for fare evasion since January of this year, concentrated in low-income neighborhoods with high Black and Brown populations. New Yorkers aren't hopping turnstiles to commit crime; they're hopping turnstiles because they can't afford the fare. The push for ticketing and summons for fare evasion is foisting the cost burden of a failing transit system onto Black and Brown New Yorkers.Coupled with this crackdown on fare evasion, we have seen a surge in police overtime expenditure. Overtime costs totaled a whopping $155 million in 2023, up from $4 million in the previous year. The total cost of fare evasion itself is $104,000—still miniscule compared to Adams's alleged fraud. Beyond the disgraced mayor, if officials like Kathy Hochul care so much about finances, why do they continue to throw their weight behind such a bad investment?
Time and time again, we are faced with expensive executive decisions that play into false public safety narratives—in this case, from a mayor who pressured the fire department (FDNY ) to open an unsafe 36-story skyscraper on behalf of an adversarial foreign government facing its own corruption scandals in building safety .
Whether the question is public safety or financial burden, the answer to fare evasion is not militarized police presence. Not only is policing fare evasion cost-inefficient, but we have also seen that it can come at the cost of New Yorkers' lives. This security theater directed by Hochul and Adams must close. Instead of criminalizing poverty, New York City must make the subway more efficient and accessible to all—investing in communities, not cops and costly gadgets.
And while we're at it, the mayor who allegedly accepted bribes to fly first class to France (via Turkey) has no business criminalizing anyone who's ever hopped a turnstile.
Worthington is research & advocacy manager at the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.). Owen is communications director at S.T.O.P.
