NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Two NYPD officers were recorded pushing a subway rider outside of a Manhattan station after he confronted the cops for not wearing face masks.
The maskless officers were filmed Tuesday pushing the man from the platform of the 8th Street station through the emergency exit door at the turnstile as the pair avoid his requests for their badge numbers.
The rider, Andrew Gilbert, told amNewYork Metro the incident unfolded during his morning commute after he began filming the officers while asking them to follow the law and wear face masks.
“The male officer was playing dumb and claimed he couldn’t hear me. I kept asking him over and over, ‘Do you know it’s illegal not to wear a mask,’” Gilbert told the paper. “I kept asking him the same thing and then he said, ‘You’re being disruptive,’ which I guess is their key word for doing whatever they want if they declare you disruptive.”
At that point, the officers grabbed Gilbert and forcibly removed him from the station.
“He just walked into me, grabbed me and pushed me,” he said. “He grabbed me by the shirt and pushed me over to the emergency exit and slammed me through it, and was yelling at me how, ‘If you’re not going to ride the train you can get out.'”
The NYPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Commuters can face $50 fines for not wearing masks while riding with the MTA. The NYPD has also warned officers they could be disciplined for not wearing face masks on the job.
Still, cops on the transit beat have regularly photographed and filmed flouting the rules. Another defiant, maskless officer went viral in August when he confronted a subway rider who was filming him for not wearing a mask.
The officer could be seen on camera complaining about the rider’s rights to film him.
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