AOC Attacks Police Officers In Defense of Turnstile Jumpers

In NYC there have been protests centering around this...

Fare evasion.

The MTA says some 500,000 riders evade the fare every day! The NYPD has issued 61,089 ticket as of October 20th, which is roughly a 40% increase from the previous year. And according to the Metropolitan Transit Authority, fare evaders costs the transit system roughly $215 million a year.

To reduce the amount of fare evasions, democrat governor Cuomo and democrat mayor De Blasio added 500 cops to the subway.

But this has been met by protests…

As well as the Bronx congresswoman jumping into the mix by supporting the anti-cop, anti-fare protestors…

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
✔
@AOC
Ending mass incarceration means challenging a system that jails the poor to free the rich.

Arresting people who can’t afford a $2.75 fare makes no one safer and destabilizes our community.

New Yorkers know that, they’re not having it, and they’re standing up for each other. https://twitter.com/rafaelshimunov/status/1190587471882596352 …

131K
12:32 AM - Nov 3, 2019
Twitter Ads info and privacy
38.2K people are talking about this
But first of all, the police don’t arrest fare evaders for not being able to pay the $2.75. The police ONLY arrest in extreme circumstances when a fare evader presents a possible threat to other pedestrians or has outstanding warrants or other charges.

So is AOC taking the radical position that the police should NEVER arrest a fare evader out of some warped sense of political correctness?

Don’t arrest the young black man who jumped the turnstile and who has three outstanding warrants and who we’re told has a gun because we don’t want to upset AOC!!!

And her tweet is even more absurd because she is arguing for…

“… people who can’t afford it…”

But how does she know they can’t afford it?

According to Bill “tax the hell out of the rich” de Blasio,

"A lot of people who commit fare evasion and the police encounter have a lot of money on them. I think I have a lot of validity on the question of income inequality and how we fight it, but you never heard me say, you know, open up the gates of the subway for free. That's chaos."

And let’s say for arguments sake they couldn’t afford the $2.75…

Is NEED a justifiable excuse to break the law? You needed to jump the turnstile? You needed to steal food? You needed to rob the rich man? If need is the barometer for legality then there is no equality before the law. There should be no special exceptions for the rich nor the poor.

They are jumping the turnstile NOT because they can’t afford it, but because they CAN get away with it.

It’s almost universally agreed subway systems should have a fare, after all, there are ZERO free subway rides on Earth nor are there free lunches except in mouse traps.

It’s only fair everyone pays their fare.

So the question becomes… how do we reduce fare evasions?

Adding police is a necessary short-term solution, but long-term it’s better to focus on prevention rather than penalization.

NYC is such a technologically advanced city above ground. It should reflect that below ground as well.

Cuomo plans on adding more cameras, which is also a train stop in the right direction, but the city needs to go further…

The turnstiles should be replaced with something that goes from knee-level to head-level…

And if that doesn’t work, they could get the turbo-deluxe package…

The full package will cost a bit extra, but in a few years, they’ll make their money back by drastically cutting down on the number of fare evasions.

And maybe instead of mine-traps, we could give people the option to work for their fare!

For every hour somebody cleans the subway they could get $5 added to their metro card. And hey, maybe if they surpass 100 hours they could even qualify for greater responsibilities such as being the one to watch for fare evaders.

This program would be the ultimate turnstile  —  turning those most likely to evade into those most likely to enforce.