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Since 1978 • (718) 260–2500 • Brooklyn, NY • ©2019 16 pages • Vol. 42, N Serving Brownstone Brooklyn, Sunset Park, Williamsburg & Greenpoint o. 22 • May 31–June 6, 2019
THE BIG BRAKE
Police arrest subway saboteur — but are there more?
See MEASLES on page 11
Photo by Colin Mixson
A generous tradition
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
Talk about community spirit!
Brooklyn Heights resident Sondra
NYPD
Fagen wants to bring victims
of natural disasters together for a
gathering on the Fourth of July.
Fagen has been hosting large
gatherings in Brooklyn and beyond
for decades, and wants to bring
back her tradition with a “Christmas
in July” potluck party for anybody
Photo by Kevin Duggan
who suffered loss during natural
disasters and people looking
for a community more broadly.
The do-gooder has taken a break
in recent years from her event host-
CRISIS OF FAITH
State pols want to eliminate religious exemptions
to vaccination before measles outbreak subsides
Two injured in W’burg collision
Both drivers claim they had right of way in evening car crash
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
He’s off the rails!
Police arrested a Clinton Hill
man who they believe pulled the
emergency brakes on at least
two subway trains over the last
two weeks, in the early hours of
May 24.
Cops nabbed 23-year-old Isaiah
Thompson at his Gates Avenue
home between Downing Street and
Grand Avenue at 12:25 a.m. for
allegedly pulling the emergency
breaks in Manhattan on a northbound
B-train May 16 and a northbound
2 train on May 21, according
to the authorities.
During his earlier strike, the
suspect allegedly exposed himself
to passengers on the platform
while surfing outside the back of
the train, police said.
Cops charged him with public
lewdness for that incident, along
with reckless endangerment and
criminal trespass for both alleged
transit sabotages.
The police got a hold of Thompson
after a tip but it is unknown
whether he is responsible for any
more similar incidents across the
transit network, according to a
spokesman.
“Unknown at this time how
many incidents he may be responsible
for,” the spokesman said.
The two commute disruptions
are part of a larger pattern where
one or more scoundrels have for
years been pulling emergency
breaks on trains, disrupting the
commute of thousands, transit honchos
said at a recent meeting.
“There does seem to be a pattern
emerging and it has happened before,”
New York City Transit president
Andy Byford said at the Metropolitan
Transportation Agency’s
board meeting on May 22.
The malefactors gain access to
the rear cab of subways with a key
and they operate the emergency
break before making a run for it
on the tracks and sometimes they
continue to do their evil deeds on
another train, according to Byford,
who condemned the acts
and said the agency would find
the perpetrators.
“It’s stupid, it’s dangerous, and
it’s selfish, and we attempt to nail
them,” the transit leader said.
The majority of these incidents
have occurred on the 2 and 5 lines,
according to Byford, but he and
MTA Chair Pat Foye were wary of
going into more detail in order to
avoid encouraging copycats.
“We were reluctant to discuss
this issue publicly given the potential
for copycats,” Foye said.
The suspect primarily targets the
trains between the Flatbush Avenue
terminus in Flatbush and Manhattan,
the site Jalopnik reports .
Transit bigwigs said both agencies
were working closely with the
city’s Police Department and asking
for the public’s help in catching
the perpetrators, which they
estimate has disrupted thousands
of commutes and put the lives of
transit workers at risk.
“We want to enlist the public’s
help, our customers’ help,
in catching these potential criminals
who are impacting the lives
of thousands of our customers
and endangering the lives of New
York City Transit men and women
who are working on the subways,
and ask them to report any suspicious
activities they see,” Foye
said.
Police arrested Clinton Hill
resident Isaiah Thompson
on May 24 for pulling the
emergency brakes on two
subway trains in Manhattan
on May 16 and 21.
Fire!
Brooklynites lined the Dyker Heights shore as the Fort Hamilton Army Base held an 11-
gun salute on May 22, welcoming nearly 3,000 service members who poured into the
city aboard ships in New York Harbor for the 31st annual Fleet Week. More than 1,000
people attended the early morning ceremony, watching a dozen ships pass under the
Verrazzano-Narrows bridge, according to a Fort Hamilton rep.
Photo by Trey Pentecost
By Colin Mixson
Brooklyn Paper
A cadre of New York lawmakers
want to eliminate religious exemptions
to vaccinations before
a state-wide measles outbreak
subsides, with one upstate senator
claiming the political will to
ax the exemption hinges on fears
stoked by the epidemic that’s overwhelmingly
affected unvaccinated
Brooklynites.
“The fear is we lose this opportunity,”
said Sen. David Carlucci,
who represents Rockland County,
which is combating its own measles
outbreak. “As we lose the outbreak
right now, there’s a sense of
security that’s just not real. We’ve
seen how vulnerable we are, and
we need to say New Yorkers are
at risk, we need to take action,
and we can’t wait for session to
be over, because then it will be
too late.”
Carlucci joined Manhattan senate
colleague Brad Hoylman and
Bronx Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz
at a press conference near City
Hall on May 28, where they hoped
to drum up support for Senate bill
S2994 and its Assembly counterpart
A2371 before the current legislative
season ends on June 19.
The lawmakers are looking to
follow in the footsteps of California
legislators — whose repeal of the
Golden State’s religious exemption
lead to state-wide increases in immunization
— as the measles virus
continues to sweep through New
York, where it has infected 843
people since October. Of those, 535
cases were discovered in Brooklyn,
where the disease has spread
rapidly through Orthodox Jewish
communities in Borough Park and
Williamsburg, in addition to infecting
12 non-Jewish residents of
Sunset Park.
The state’s religious exemption
allows unvaccinated children to attend
public schools, where students
would otherwise require a more
stringent medical exemption to enroll
without inoculations.
At the press conference, a group
of cancer survivors — all students
— suffering severely compromised
immune systems joined the politicians,
who spoke out about the extraordinary
care they must take to
avoid disease and infection, saying
that sharing a classroom with
an unvaccinated classmate could
lead to the end of their lives.
“We’re just trying to live,” said
Teela Wyman, a 26-year-old law
student who survived stage four
lymphoma cancer, and required
lung surgery three times last year
due to infections, including one
caused by the flu. “We’re just trying
to be normal people. These diseases
are preventable.”
Proponents of the exemption
claim it’s a protection guaranteed
by the First Amendment, while
also arguing that the vast majority
of non-vaccinated New Yorkers
do not have a religious exemption,
and that repealing it would
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
Two drivers sustained minor
injuries after they smashed into
each other at a Williamsburg intersection
on the evening of May
27, according to authorities.
The drivers collided when one
was heading toward Broadway on
Marcy Avenue as the other motorist
was heading toward Bushwick
on S. Third Street at 7:30
p.m., police said.
Both drivers claimed they had
a green light when the collision
happened, a spokeswoman for the
police said.
The driver of the second vehicle
was taken to Bellevue Hospital
with minor injuries, while victim
at the other wheel had minor injuries
but it is unknown whether they
were taken to hospital, according
to the spokeswoman.
Heights resident looks to revive holiday dinner
See TRADITION on page 11
Anti-vaxxers led a counter-protest outside City Council offices Tuesday where state pols
promoted a bill to revoke religious exemptions to vaccinations.
Two drivers sustained minor injuries after they t-boned at the intersection of Marcy Avenue
and S. Third Street in Williamsburg on the evening of May 27.
Photo by Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Heights resident Sondra Fagen is looking to revive a decades-old tradition of
hers of bringing together people looking for a community potluck on the Fourth of July.
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