Strange

Busted! What Happens Once You're Arrested on the Subway

by Jordan Yerman | March 6, 2008 at 02:59 pm

567 views | 0 Recommendations | 1 comment

If you ever wondered what happened if you get arrested on the NYC subway, well, wonder no more: here's a firsthand account from a woman busted for drinking beer on the F-Train.

After taking away my beer, the cute-but-weathered strawberry-blonde lady cop who arrested me put me in a van with two other quality-of-life violators: an old homeless Polish man named Bogden, and a seventeen-year-old black kid named Kevia. Both were arrested for "outstretch": taking up more than one seat on the subway, or lying down on the seats.

We sat in the van for two hours while officers tried to round up another "body," as they're called, for the night's sweep. "Doin' a big sweep on quality-of-life offenses," I heard the baldheaded, babyfaced male cop tell someone on his cellphone.

All in all, this seems a bit wasteful of already-stretched city resources to throw people in jail (even temporarily) for lying down on the subway. Anyone who's ever had to wait on a stank platform at two in the morning for forty minutes for a train has surely felt the need to stretch out...

[I got busted once for helping someone dodge a fare, but I was never actually arrested. For the record, I'm unrepentant- she genuinely needed to get home]

4 See all footage | View Slideshow

Share: email story | add to any | | facebook | stumbleupon