Man Spends 28 Hours in Jail For Using Emergency Subway Exit

My guess is, with a name like Zielinski, he didn't fit any profile for which they would have been profiling that day.

the difference is that EMERGENCY door is there so there is a clear path in case of an EMERGENCY, not just an escape hatch.

You can still use it for bikes and strollers and luggage.

ten seconds is a very very long time when it is an emergency... just think about that

"Are you required to have ID? I was always told, ny lawyers, all you have to provide is name and current address. with that a cop can verify you are who you say you are."

You don't need to have ID until you break a law. Once you do that, you can be held for up to 72 hours while they positively identify you.

I'm sure they alarmed them because the MTA employees can't be counted on to open them when someone really needs it.

"Those doors were unalarmed for the first 30 years of my time here."

No, these doors have been installed only over the past few years. Previously any doors would usually simply be locked (usually controlled from the booth, but in some cases not), but once the HEETs started to replace regular turnstiles that was considered unsafe because people couldn't quickly exit in an emergency. So the old doors were replaced with these with the breaker bars wherever HEETs were in use.

There was no reason for alarms on the old doors, because customers couldn't open them. These are alarmed to discourage fare evasion.

"The charges were reduced to a traffic violation"

No one considers having a traffic ticket to be a 'dirty record'.

No, but I do consider "Oh yeah, I did get arrested for DUI but I plead it down" to make me less likely to take this guy as a wronged hero.

Maybe the Gothamist rabid anger patrol needs him to get drunk and mow down a few pedestrian first?

No, the comment system makes up half the fun here. I mean, I replied to Politburo and ended up in a whole separate thread. It's fun!

I didn't know you aren't really supposed to do this either. I mean, if I expect maybe to get yelled at but that's the most. I see people go through the ones at the 23rd stop on the 6 every single day. Usually the alarm doesn't even go off anymore. The trick is to push the door open without pushing the actual bar right, he must not have known this.

"you can't arbitrarily ticket one person every five trains when the sound "alarms" no one in any way. it's not fair and it makes no sense."

I agree that it's at least bordering on ridiculous to ticket people for this (let alone actually putting them through the system), in large part because there's no notification that it is against the law. In addition to the "Emergency Exit" signs, they should have something stating that it's illegal (if in fact it is -- the MTA rules of conduct don't really address it, though the "disorderly conduct" section can cover just about anything in stating that one can not conduct oneself "in any manner which may cause or tend to cause annoyance, alarm or inconvenience").

But the argument that you can't ticket just one person if many are doing it doesn't hold up. By that logic, then, you can't ticket speeders unless you can ticket all of them (which is an argument that has been tried in failed in many courts over the years). Taken to a further extreme, you can't arrest a murderer if some of them aren't being arrested.

i guess ill take the time to comment from the other end of the spectrum, the law enforcement side. many of you post on this site being completely sheltered from the true realities of new york city. first i will point out that 25 hours is a common occurrence for someone who finds there way to central booking, and if you made it that far, believe me, you earned it. like it or not, carrying your grandfathers pocket knife, you earned your night at the bookings. there are many ways a seemingly harmless pocket knife can be turned into a deadly weapon, and id need more than my fingers and toes to count the times ive seen someone murdered with one.

police given leeway? sure, we have discretion, but dont tell me when i can use it and when i cant. i deal with the scum of the earth and i deal with some of the nicest people, nice people break the law too, not because i say so but because lawmakers say so. go ahead and bad mouth the cops, everyones always innocent, dont blame yourself for not knowing the law.

next you bring up bad calls on handling the mentally incapacitated. this is a touchy subject for me as ive seen a coworker come within seconds of losing his life after he was stabbed in the eye by a man who was "mentally incapacitated." the real travesty with dealing with emotionally disturbed people is the way the city and their mental institutions handle these individuals and rush them out the door to rejoin a sane society they have no business being in. when dealind with these people, you expect me to rush to the scene and then critic my every action? there is no perfect way to do police work, sometimes things go wrong, but i deal with this multiple times everyday, and 1 in a million it goes bad. thanks to the public for lashing out the one time it goes wrong for the disturbed person, and remaining silent the 10 times a cop is hurt. my first priority is myself, after i ensure that i am safe, i will absolutely do my best to make sure the emotionally disturbed person is safe.

finally i will address the issue in the article. first, i dont work transit, and dont agree with the law. with that being said it is still a law whether you knew it or not. second, the transit system, like a drivers license is a privilege, not a right. by using the system you agree to follow certain terms. the gate is alarmed for a reason, when one person decides to go out, your opening the door for 5 people to come in. in the 80s crime was driven down by police targetting turnstile hopping, with the idea being, people going into the subway to commit crimes arent going to pay a fair, and the idea worked. crime was driven way down in subways with this approach. this concept with the gate is the same philosophy, by opening the gate, your giving people a way to beat a fare, and opening yourself up to the opportunity to receive a summons.

if you receive a summons in the transit system, you go into a database. if you commit a second offense in the transit system, that would normally warrant a summons, you automatically get arrested because your a repeat offender. its a pretty simple concept, use the system like it was intended to be used. new yorkers are so self centered, only looking for their best interest and convenience. dont walk between cars, dont lay out on the seats, use the turnstiles, pretty simple if you ask me. this guy had a clean record? no way! he either had a warrant for a summons he never paid, or was a past offender in the transit system.

Thanks for the perspective. I can say, from personal experience, that your notion that if a person ends up in central book for 24+ hours he/she "earned it," is nonsense. I don't have time to go into my details, but in my case it involved an officer lying about me "popping a warrent" after I was stopped for performing in the subway, which was perfectly legal in the area where I was performing according to the MTA rules. When I finally saw a lawyer 24+ hours later, she told me there was no outstanding warrant and I was released with an ACD, which I regret taking because it meant I couldn't sue the city.

On another occasion I was sent to The Tombs during a political demonstration. Despite the fact that the courts have ordered the NYPD to issue desk appearance summons for disorderly conduct during demonstrations, they still routinely send protesters through the system for 24+ hours as a way to discourage dissent. In my case, I was in jail for 30 hours and the police lied on the police report, charging me with a felony count of incite to riot and alleging that I had yelled "Kill Giuliani," and "Burn Times Square."

Of course, this is hardly unheard of, as the recent cop/cyclist/bodyslam scandal demonstrated. Your self-serving idea that everyone in Central Booking deserves to be locked up there is as ludicrous as saying all cops are bad.

your right, i am overgeneralizing, not everyone earned it i guess, like i said before, everyones innocent. i guess the city just has bands of rogue cops running around doing as they please. and look, mysteriously crime is down, yet we are putting innocent people in jail, not the criminals.

and lets not forget, a summons is in lieu of arrest. translation, if you do something that warrants a summons, a police officer has the right to put you through the system instead. summonses and apperance tickets are designed to reduce the caseloads in court, which is the reason why a persons wait in central booking is so long, and believe me, i agree that amount of time is way too long to sit in the bookings.

you bring up the officer knocking the biker down. what everyone refuses to admit is that there is no video evidence of anything before the hit. i wasnt there, i dont know if hes guilty or innocent, but im not gonna pass judgement unless i see evidence pointing in either direction. the public on the other, cops are guilty till proven innocent, thats why cops in the unfortunate position of being a defendant take bench trials. the public is dumb, and they dont know the laws.

just remember when you finally see a judge after your 25+ hours, "i didnt know i couldnt do that is no defense." for me, ill just stick to being a law abiding citizen, then non of this useless argument applies to me.