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Maximus Rex;542295 said:NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton Says Cops Will Wake Up Sleeping Subway Riders to Protect Them From Crime
BY KERRY BURKE, ROCCO PARASCANDOLA, THOMAS TRACY NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Thursday, February 4, 2016,
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bratton-warns-new-yorkers-no-sleeping-subway-article-1.2519090
First there was stop and frisk. Now there’s shake and wake.
Cops will be looking to wake up snoozing subway riders — all in the name of their own safety — as the NYPD battles soaring crime concerns on the rails, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said Wednesday.
“Subways are not for sleeping,” New York’s top cop said during a news conference at 1 Police Plaza that also featured Mayor de Blasio.
“I know people have gotten out of work and are tired, but we are going to start waking people up.”
Bratton said this new step has become necessary since 50% of reported crimes on the subway “involve sleeping passengers.”
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A row of passengers sleep on the F train.
People who sleep on the subway are more at risk of becoming victims of sexual assault and pickpocketing, Bratton explained.
“If you are sleeping on the subway, you make yourself a very easy victim and much more susceptible to a crime,” Bratton said. “Why would you put yourself at that risk?”
But Bratton’s bizarre plan left rush-hour train commuters more restless than restful.
“It’s ridiculous,” said Antoinette Perry, 58, as she waited for a downtown No. 2 train at the 42nd St.—Times Square station with her 6-year-old granddaughter Sakura. “Everybody falls asleep on the train, especially after a hard day’s work.”
Perry said “the rocking of the train” helps riders fall asleep.
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Bratton's policy made the front page of the Daily News on Wednesday.
“It’s like a mother’s womb. It’s comforting,” she added.
Some straphangers feared the no-sleep for the subway initiative was simply a new version of stop-and-frisk.
“It’s going to lead to a lot of conflicts with the police,” said vendor Debra Bula, 46, “It’s going to go from ‘Wake up’ to ‘Can I see some ID?’ to ‘Would you please come off the train.’ It starts as a wake up and ends with harassment.”
Bula’s son Anthony Atkinson, 29, lost $400 on the train when a thief cut open his pants pocket as he slept on an A train, but still wouldn’t want a cop to shake him from his slumber — even if it could save him from becoming a victim.
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NYPD Commissioner Bratton has announced napping is no longer allowed on subway trains and police are going to start waking people up.
“The police are going to start stopping people of color and asking for their ID... it’s not going to be the average white man,” Atkinson said. “They’re going to take the sleeping issue and use it for other ends.”
In his remarks, Bratton referenced the 1967 Petula Clark chart-topper “Don’t Sleep In The Subway.”
On Wednesday night, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa opened his show with the ditty — then went on to bash Bratton for being out of touch with everyday train riders.
“The police commissioner blamed you ... those who work two or three shifts and fall asleep on the subway for creating these problems,” said Sliwa, who brought his Guardian Angels back on the rails to combat the rising crime trend.
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Police Commissioner Bill Bratton says subways are not for sleeping.
Sliwa demanded the police put together a better game plan.
“You’re gonna roust them instead of rousting the criminals, the pickpockets ... the perverts, the weenie-wavers,” he asked. “You don’t do this with the homeless people as they lay parallel, sleeping on the subway.”
Cops will be using their discretion when waking riders and remind them that they should better secure their property and surroundings, a police source with knowledge of the new directive said.
“They’re going to have to play it by ear,” the source added. “If it’s 5 p.m. and they see someone nodding off in a crowded train car, they’ll probably leave them alone. But if it's late at night and someone is asleep on an empty train car with a cellphone falling out of his hand, they’ll wake that guy up and tell him to put his phone away.”
Cops will also be waking commuters “as non-confrontationally as possible,” the source said.
According to MTA rules, it is not illegal to sleep on the subway unless someone is taking up more than one seat, interferes with train operation or disrupts another passenger's comfort.
Cops used a similar tactic to combat a spike in subway crime in March 2012, with transit officers on the midnight tour going car-to-car and waking sleeping passengers before “subway creepers” could cut open their pockets and take their valuables.
At 3 a.m. Tuesday, police said, a thief tried to do just that. A 37-year-old man sleeping on a northbound 4 train awoke to a tug on his pants and found another man looming over him, razor blade in hand.
The victim’s jeans were cut by the left pocket. He tried to restrain the crook but got a punch in the face before the assailant ran out of the 51st St. subway station.
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Bratton says sleeping on the subway makes you into an easy victim.
Police think he’s the same man who tried to rob a straphanger on a northbound C train in Harlem Sunday night. In that case, the victim grabbed the creep’s knife, slicing his own hand in the process.
Meester;8741488 said:Cop: wake up someone is about to rob you!!!
Maximus Rex;8741293 said:jono;8741285 said:You right. Lets turn the train, which is an enclosed space into a shooting gallery. Also, if you are sleep how you get to your gun?
To argue that is dumb as fuck.
No it's not. An armed society is a safe society. If people are walking around strapped, people are less likely to start shit with you. Besides, men have a right to protect themselves against villains, miscreants, other forms of social degenerates, and the mentally deficient.