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    Daniel Penny’s Lawyers Will Ask to Throw Out Chokehold Charge in N.Y.C. Subway Death Case

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    Mr. Penny’s subway-car struggle with a homeless man, Jordan Neely, ended in death. On Thursday, his lawyers will also ask a judge to exclude video of Mr. Penny discussing the encounter.Minutes after a subway rider named Daniel Penny choked Jordan Neely in a train car in May 2023, Mr. Penny stood inside the Broadway-Lafayette Street station in Manhattan telling officers, “I just put him out.”Mr. Penny was recorded on body-worn camera explaining to officers that Mr. Neely, a homeless man, had entered an F train and thrown his possessions on the ground, and that he was “was very aggressive, going crazy.”“He’s like: ‘I’m ready to go to prison for life. I’m ready to die, I’m ready to die,’” Mr. Penny told an officer, according to court filings from prosecutors. “And I was standing behind him. I think I might have just put him in a choke, put him down. We just went to the ground. He was trying to roll up. I had him pretty good. I was in the Marine Corps.”Last year, Mr. Penny, who is from Long Island, was charged with second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, and jury selection for his trial is scheduled to begin on Oct. 21. In a hearing on Thursday, lawyers for Mr. Penny asked a judge to suppress the comments he made to officers at the subway station and later at a precinct house, and to dismiss the indictment against him.When the video of the encounter spread online last year, it reverberated through the nation. The chokehold was captured in a four-minute video that showed Mr. Penny with his arms around Mr. Neely’s neck and his legs wrapped around his body. Mr. Neely struggled against Mr. Penny’s restraint as two other men stepped in to hold him down.Mr. Penny cooperated with officers who came to the scene and arrested him after Mr. Neely died, even going back to the Fifth Precinct to speak with them, his lawyers said in court filings. However, his statements followed what they argued was an illegal arrest.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      N.Y.P.D. Understated Woman’s Wound in Subway Shooting, Lawyer Says

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      Kerry Gahalal, who was struck when officers shot a knife-wielding man at a Brooklyn station, was not simply “grazed” as officials said, according to a lawyer for the woman’s family.A 26-year-old woman who was wounded when New York City police officers shot a knife-wielding man at a Brooklyn subway station was not “grazed” by gunfire as officials have said, according to a lawyer for her family. Instead, the lawyer said on Saturday, she has a bullet lodged in her leg and is unable to walk.The woman, Kerry Gahalal, was one of two bystanders to be struck when the officers shot the man, Derrell Mickles, during a confrontation last Sunday at the Sutter Avenue L train station in the Brownsville neighborhood. The other bystander, Gregory Delpeche, was in critical condition on Friday.The contention that police officials had minimized the severity of Ms. Gahalal’s injury came a day after the Police Department released video footage of the episode that appeared unlikely to end questions about whether the officers had acted appropriately under the circumstances.The shooting is being examined by the department’s Force Investigation Division and the Brooklyn district attorney’s office. Police leaders and Mayor Eric Adams have said that the use of force was justified because Mr. Mickles had threatened officers with a weapon. Critics say it was a dangerous escalation of what had begun as an effort to enforce the minor offense of fare evasion.Ms. Gahalal turned 26 the day before the shooting and was taking the subway to Manhattan with her husband for a celebratory dinner when the L train they were on stopped at the Sutter Avenue station, the lawyer for her family, Joel Levine, said.Discussing the shooting, in which Mr. Mickles and an officer were also wounded, Jeffrey Maddrey, the chief of department, said at a police news conference last Sunday that a male bystander (Mr. Delpeche) had been struck in the head and that a female bystander (Ms. Gahalal) had been “grazed.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      NYPD Officials Defend Shooting on Brooklyn Subway That Wounded Bystanders

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      “We are not perfect,” said John Chell, the Police Department’s chief of patrol, as protesters gathered in Union Square.New York City police leaders said Wednesday evening that officers had done the best they could when they shot a man wielding a knife, also hitting a fellow officer and two bystanders — including one who suffered a grave head wound.Police officials said that in the “next couple of days” they would release body-worn camera footage captured by the officers who fired their weapons Sunday at the man they said had the knife, Derell Mickles, 37. He was hit in the stomach and is expected to recover.Also shot was Gregory Delpeche, a 49-year-old hospital administrator who was on his way to work and in an adjacent car when officers firing struck him in the head. He was in critical condition. A 26-year-old woman was grazed by a bullet, the police said. The Brooklyn district attorney’s office is investigating the actions of the officers.John Chell, the chief of patrol, said that despite those injuries, the officers had acted according to the department’s guidelines, which allow officers to use deadly force when they believe their lives are in danger.“We are not perfect and every situation is not the same,” he said. “This is a fast-moving, fast-paced and a stressful situation, and we did the best we could to protect our lives and the lives of the people on that train.”The shootings were the violent culmination of a confrontation that started after Mr. Mickles twice evaded the fare to get into the Sutter Avenue L train station in Brooklyn, the police said. The officers’ response has set off criticism that the police are being too aggressive when trying to stop fare evaders and has led to demonstrations, including one Wednesday night in Manhattan.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Officer and 3 Others Injured by Police Gunfire in Subway Station Clash

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      When officers shot a man wielding a knife on a platform in Brooklyn, an officer and two bystanders were also hit, the police said. One bystander was in critical condition.A late-summer afternoon at an elevated subway station in Brooklyn exploded in chaos on Sunday as a police officer, a disturbed man armed with a knife and two bystanders were struck by police gunfire, the police said.The officer was struck below his armpit and was in stable condition on Sunday night, the police said. The man with the knife was struck several times and was also in stable condition. A 49-year-old male bystander was struck in the head and was in critical condition. A 26-year-old woman, also a bystander, was grazed by a bullet and was stable. The shooting occurred just after 3 p.m. at the Sutter Avenue stop on the border of East New York and Brownsville.Two officers saw a man enter the station without paying and followed him up the stairs, said Chief Jeffrey B. Maddrey at a news conference on Sunday evening.“The officers are asking him to take his hands out of his pockets,” Chief Maddrey said. “They become aware that he has a knife in his pocket. The male basically challenges the officers: ‘No, you’re going to have to shoot me.’”A Manhattan-bound L train entered the station, and the man darted inside an open door. The two officers followed and fired their Tasers, but neither device was effective in subduing the man, Chief Maddrey said.The man returned to the platform. “He’s advancing on one of the officers with his knife,” and both officers fired their handguns, Chief Maddrey said. The man went down, and the fallout of the shooting quickly revealed itself. One officer and two bystanders had also been struck.“I don’t like to use that term ‘friendly fire,’ but absolutely we believe at this time that our officers were the only ones who discharged weapons,” Chief Maddrey said. “Everyone that was struck this afternoon, we believe, was by our officers.”The newly appointed interim police commissioner, Thomas Donlon spoke briefly to reporters. It was Mr. Donlon’s first emergency response since he was appointed three days earlier, after the resignation of Commissioner Edward A. Caban, whose phone was recently seized in a federal investigation with a scope that remains unclear.“It’s a dangerous job, and today is another reminder of that,” Mr. Donlon said. “Right now we are grateful that our officer will be OK.”Mayor Eric Adams also briefly addressed reporters, citing the danger posed by the man with the knife, “a person with over 20 arrests, a real career criminal.”The daytime shooting rattled neighbors who regularly use the Sutter Avenue subway stop. Arlene Alfred, 74, was passing the station when she heard the booming shots. “Like echoes,” she said. “The noise, with the train coming in, with the gunshots.”Ms. Alfred lives a block away and has lived in Brownsville for 32 years.“Anything could happen, any time, any day,” she said. “I’m always going up and down those stairs. I said to myself, Thank you, Jesus, I wasn’t in the train.”Olivia Bensimon More

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      M.T.A. Says No More Free Bus Rides for Fare Evaders

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      M.T.A. officials on Thursday announced an effort to curb rampant fare evasion on city buses that has cost the agency hundreds of millions in lost revenue.Transit officials on Thursday expanded efforts to prevent fare beaters from boarding New York City buses, where one out of two passengers fails to pay.While most enforcement efforts have focused on the subway, fare evasion is much more prevalent on city buses. According to the latest statistics from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, in 2022 the state agency lost $285 million to fare evasion in the subway system and $315 million on buses even as roughly twice the number of passengers ride the trains.It is the latest enforcement effort by an agency facing a dire financial future, in part because of widespread fare evasion. The M.T.A. has predicted deficits of almost $1 billion by 2028, mostly because of lower-than-expected fare revenue.The authority for years has sent groups of unarmed, uniformed employees to patrol buses and give tickets to riders who do not pay as part of its Evasion and Graffiti Lawlessness Eradication program, known as EAGLE. Last year, the M.T.A. expanded the routes the groups covered and focused on locations with high rates of fare evasion.At the same time, the Police Department created a unit specifically dedicated to bus fare evasion. As part of that effort, the department deploys officers alongside the M.T.A.’s teams to more effectively curb fare beating and to keep the transit workers safe from retaliation.It’s unclear how successful the latest round of enforcement will be. Past attempts to rein the problem in have failed to yield results on the subway, where 14 percent of riders failed to pay to ride during the first three months of the year. During the same time period last year, the rate was 11 percent.Enforcement is even more difficult on the buses, where there are no turnstiles or gates to block access. Transit experts say it is much easier to skip the fare, and some riders also feel justified because heavy traffic and a lack of bus lanes means that bus service can be slow and unreliable. On buses, the fare evasion rate was 39 percent at the beginning of 2023 and 48 percent at the start of this year.On a webpage posted Monday to announce the recent effort, the M.T.A. said that fare beaters who refuse to pay may asked to leave the bus and may receive a summons. More

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      Federal Audit Orders M.T.A. to Improve Subway Worker Safety

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      The Federal Transit Administration released the report nine months after the death of a transit worker. If the M.T.A. does not comply, it could lose funding.Federal transportation officials said on Wednesday that the death of a transit worker who was hit by a train in November, as well as a rising number of “near-miss” incidents on train tracks last year, reflected unsafe conditions and practices that were putting transit employees at growing risk.In an audit, the Federal Transit Administration counted 38 events in which track workers were involved in close calls in 2023. That tally was up from 24 incidents in 2022 and 23 in 2021.The majority of the dangerous events were caused by the failure of transit employees to “comply with key safety rules and established procedures,” according to the F.T.A.Half of the “near-miss” incidents last year involved one or more transit workers who failed to follow proper procedures while flagging — the job of notifying trains when workers are on the tracks. Other incidents involved factors such as improper communication and radio use, inadequate protection and train operator inattention. A “near-miss” incident is defined as an event in which death or injury is narrowly avoided and typically happens when a worker is struck by a train, steps on the third rail or slips and falls on the tracks.“The volume of close calls is pretty worrying,” said Jim Mathews, chief executive of the Rail Passengers Association, an advocacy group. “If you work in and around the subway, you’ve had an awful lot of close calls, and eventually close calls catch up to you.”The F.T.A., which is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation, drew up a list of remedies for the unsafe working conditions that included an updated safety plan from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which oversees the city’s transit network.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Weapons Scanner Arrives in the Subway. Adams Says It Isn’t Optional.

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      Mayor Eric Adams announced that a new scanner would search for guns on the subway. Riders who refuse to be scanned, he said, will not be allowed to enter the system.Mayor Eric Adams announced the start of a contentious new plan to put a gun-detecting scanner in the subway on Friday and warned that New Yorkers who refused to be scanned would be kicked out of the system.Mr. Adams highlighted the scanner inside the busy Fulton Street subway station in Lower Manhattan, arguing that the technology would help make the subway safer.“Many New Yorkers will be familiar with this type of technology — it’s not new, and it’s being used in big cities across the country,” Mr. Adams said, noting that scanners were already being used at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Citi Field.A new pilot program will involve one scanner that will be moved to different stations over the next 30 days, city officials said. Mr. Adams said it would not cost the city any money.Civil rights groups immediately called the scanners unconstitutional and said they were preparing to take legal action.“New Yorkers did not consent to give up their rights or be N.Y.P.D. guinea pigs for overhyped and error-prone surveillance tech,” said a joint statement from the Legal Aid Society and the New York Civil Liberties Union. “We are prepared to protect the right of all subway riders to be free from N.Y.P.D. intrusion and harassment.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Googly-Eyed Trains Lift the Spirits of Boston Riders

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      Organizers of a plan to adorn some trains with googly eyes said that if the trains could not be reliable, they could at least make commuters smile.Demonstrators marched to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s Boston headquarters in April with a single, deeply researched demand.Put googly eyes on some trains, they said. Two months later, their demands have been met — at least until the decals wear off.The campaign was organized by two recent college graduates who cast the effort as an attempt to improve commuters’ spirits and promote empathy for the metal contraptions that transport them.“When T trains are delayed, people can at least look into the eyes of the train when it finally arrives, and feel some love and understanding in their hearts,” the organizers wrote before the march to the Transportation Authority’s headquarters.“The T doesn’t want to be late,” they wrote. “It feels bad being late.”The organizers said the Transportation Authority also had “a responsibility to improve the lives of Bostonians.”If the city’s trains can’t be reliable, they wrote, at least they could bring a smile to riders. The system averages about 766,000 riders on weekdays.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Man Fatally Stabbed at Manhattan Subway Station, Police Say

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      The stabbing, during a dispute between two people, occurred just before 6 p.m. at the West 175th Street A train station.A 40-year-old man was fatally stabbed at an Upper Manhattan subway station Friday night during a dispute with another person, the police said.Officers responding to a 911 call about a person stabbed at the West 175th Street A train station in Washington Heights just before 6 p.m. found the man near the turnstiles on the mezzanine level, the police said. He had been stabbed several times in the torso, the police said.The man, whose name was not released pending notification of his family, was taken to Harlem Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, the police said.No arrests had been made as of Friday night, and the investigation was continuing, the police said.Entrances to the 175th Street station were closed during the investigation, and trains were skipping the station.Dakota Santiago for The New York TimesAround 8:30 p.m., a station entrance on Fort Washington Avenue between West 174th and 175th Streets was closed off with yellow police tape. A trains were skipping the station, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the subways. Police officers at the station entrances were directing riders to take the bus or head to stations at West 181st or 168th Streets.M.T.A. surveys show that many riders feel unsafe, but data has not always confirmed the public’s perception. Crime rates rose during the coronavirus pandemic starting in 2020, but last year overall crime in the transit system fell nearly 3 percent compared with 2022 even as the number of daily riders rose 14 percent.There have been five murders in the transit system this year through June 16, according to police data, compared with four during the same time period last year. Overall major crime in the transit system this year is down 5.5 percent compared with the same time period last year. More