A Subway Rider Confronted Unmasked Police Officers. They Kicked Him Out.
A New York City police officer grabs a male commuter by his jacket and pushes him through an emergency exit door at a subway station in Manhattan, video posted to social media shows. “You’re being disruptive,” the officer tells him.
The man in the 35-second video clip — which has garnered more than one million views and ushered in a fresh wave of criticism of the police — said in an interview that the confrontation erupted when he asked the officer and his partner to put on masks.
Andrew Gilbert, 27, said he had just gotten off the train on his way to work at around 8:45 a.m. on Tuesday when he approached two officers at the Eighth Street subway station in Manhattan who were not wearing masks and asked them to put them on, in accordance with the rules.
The M.T.A. requires masks to be worn inside subway stations and on trains, and the Police Department requires officers to wear face coverings in public transit settings.“The male officer sort of started playing dumb with me, saying, like, ‘I can’t hear what you’re saying through your mask,’” Mr. Gilbert said on Wednesday.
The back-and-forth continued for about a minute, Mr. Gilbert said, before the officer shoved him about 80 feet backward and pushed him out of the exit door. “If you’re not going to ride the train, just get out,” Mr. Gilbert said the officer told him.