BY MARK HALLUM AND
COLIN MIXSON
Elected offi cials and transit
advocates are treating a viral
video of police harassing a
churros vendor at the Broadway
Junction subway stop as
Exhibit A in their campaign to
stop Governor Andrew Cuomo
from hiring 500 new cops to police
the city’s subway system.
“We can’t avoid connecting
this directly to the 500 additional
offi cers,” said state Sen.
Julia Salazar. “They’re bullying
teenagers, hurting the trust
between people and police, and
bullying vendors.”
Salazar partnered with
advocates at Riders Alliance
and the Street Vendors Project
to organize a protest outside
Broadway Junction on Monday,
where they were joined by
the vendor, named Elsa, who
became internet famous after
footage of police cuffi ng her
and confi scating her snack cart
on Friday accrued nearly 2 million
views.
“I’m here alone and no one
helps. I’m here 4 years but it
wasn’t like this, this guy is very
racist,” Elsa said at the rally. “I
feel terrible, I tell them give me
tickets but don’t take away my
stuff, it’s all I have to work for
my kids.”
The incident follows a viral
video of police beating teens
at the Jay Street-MetroTech
subway station and comes as
Cuomo plans to spend as much
as $900 million over the next 10
years hiring hundreds of new
cops to crack down on fare beaters
throughout the city’s transit
system.
The nine-fi gure spending
spree, which was calculated
by the Citizens Budget Commission,
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would combine with
the MTA’s current $740 million
defi cit to create a more than $1
billion funding gap within the
next four years, and advocates
say Cuomo’s crazy to hire cops
when he could be investing in
the subway.
“Cuomo made this decision,”
said Rebecca Bailin of
the Rider’s Alliance. “He’s using
MTA money that should be
going to increasing service, and
he’s using it to police New Yorkers.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio backed
police offi cers when asked
about the churros incident at a
press conference Monday, calling
the vendor’s un-permitted
activity “an emergency,” while
claiming the NYPD has become
a more progressive, community
focused organization under
his administration.
“Sometimes we’re going to
have a situation that’s an emergency,
or a situation where offi
cers have to respond as best
they can under tough circumstances,”
said de Blasio. “The
point to me is to continue to
evolve policing in a direction
that we are closer and closer to
communities, and that’s what
we’re trying to do.”
This isn’t the fi rst time the
city’s faced backlash for cracking
down on unlicensed vendors.
In April, the city will pay
$188,000 to 300 vendors, who
fi led a class action lawsuit
claiming the Department of
Health and Mental Hygiene had
confi scated and destroyed their
carts after handing out violations
for un-permitted activity.
A Brooklyn churro vendor cuffed by police spoke at a rally Monday.
Photo by Mark Hallum
And another churro vendor
wound up in handcuffs at
the Myrtle-Wyckoff Avenues
station on the Ridgewood/
Bushwick border just before
the Broadway Junction rally
kicked off Monday, Bushwick
Daily reported.
Silvana Diaz contributed to
this report.
Advocates rail against over-policing
after cops cuff churros vendor
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