fare evasion
Fare Evasion
We had a delicious Yemeni meal of humus, fusillia, hobz bread and four cups of sugary strong brown Yemeni tea. Other than the four pebbles, found in the fusillia, the meal was appetizing.
As we tried to get into the subway from Brooklyn, last evening, my friend SZ’s metro card was not working at the turnstile, she kept trying over and over, and it said, too fast or too slow, or some other cryptic command. Their was no assistance near by and considering we had valid metro cards, I ran my card, and we both went through the turnstile.
We both laughed as we squeezed through the turnstile, and she remarked, “I have never done this before”There were other people at the Bergen street station, looking at us..and soon we saw the same mass come towards us. They pulled out their silver medallion ID’s and said,
"we are cops you broke the law and doubled up. Show us your ID’s”
Their were six plain clothes policeman waiting for us.
The woman undercover, said she was going to scan our ids to see if we had a record or were using any alias.
The good cop started asking us questions.
You guys don’t look like the type who do such things, where do you live?
I didn’t know whether he was flirting or interrogating us.
Soon our ids were returned. We were asked our telephone numbers and weight, and were handed yellow summons to appear in court or pay a $60 fine.
Were we being profiled, two South Asian woman in the subway?
What if we were not carrying our ID’s ? Would we have gone to jail?
This is the fear that people without papers must face every day? Could we have been deported if they found out that were not in the country legally?
If you are poor and don’t have the $60 to pay what happens then?
Do their need to be six cops enforcing a station that only has two trains running? Seems like over enforcement to me.
Ironically we were close to the Brooklyn Detention Center, where many Muslim South Asians and Arab men have been held, since September 11th, 2001 in inhuman conditions, like not seeing sunlight for days or having light shone in their cells all the time.
As we got to home station, a man with a red eye came running to the ticket booth operator and yelled in fear, “call the cops, there are people trying to kill me”.
We quickly walked away from the station, away from the police and the injured man, the fear and anger.
Welcome to the underclass underbelly of New York City.
We had a delicious Yemeni meal of humus, fusillia, hobz bread and four cups of sugary strong brown Yemeni tea. Other than the four pebbles, found in the fusillia, the meal was appetizing.
As we tried to get into the subway from Brooklyn, last evening, my friend SZ’s metro card was not working at the turnstile, she kept trying over and over, and it said, too fast or too slow, or some other cryptic command. Their was no assistance near by and considering we had valid metro cards, I ran my card, and we both went through the turnstile.
We both laughed as we squeezed through the turnstile, and she remarked, “I have never done this before”There were other people at the Bergen street station, looking at us..and soon we saw the same mass come towards us. They pulled out their silver medallion ID’s and said,
"we are cops you broke the law and doubled up. Show us your ID’s”
Their were six plain clothes policeman waiting for us.
The woman undercover, said she was going to scan our ids to see if we had a record or were using any alias.
The good cop started asking us questions.
You guys don’t look like the type who do such things, where do you live?
I didn’t know whether he was flirting or interrogating us.
Soon our ids were returned. We were asked our telephone numbers and weight, and were handed yellow summons to appear in court or pay a $60 fine.
Were we being profiled, two South Asian woman in the subway?
What if we were not carrying our ID’s ? Would we have gone to jail?
This is the fear that people without papers must face every day? Could we have been deported if they found out that were not in the country legally?
If you are poor and don’t have the $60 to pay what happens then?
Do their need to be six cops enforcing a station that only has two trains running? Seems like over enforcement to me.
Ironically we were close to the Brooklyn Detention Center, where many Muslim South Asians and Arab men have been held, since September 11th, 2001 in inhuman conditions, like not seeing sunlight for days or having light shone in their cells all the time.
As we got to home station, a man with a red eye came running to the ticket booth operator and yelled in fear, “call the cops, there are people trying to kill me”.
We quickly walked away from the station, away from the police and the injured man, the fear and anger.
Welcome to the underclass underbelly of New York City.
Comments