A recent incident involving two New York City police officers and a woman riding the subway has caused a lot of outrage online, particularly on TikTok. The officers were filmed forcefully removing the passenger from a train as she tried her best to resist them, screaming that she had done nothing wrong.
According to a fellow passenger who recorded the incident, the woman was being arrested for “sleeping on the train.” However, that claim has not been independently confirmed as of the time of writing, and the moments leading up to the confrontation were not captured in the video.
In the footage, the NYPD officers can be seen grabbing and pulling her from her seat as she repeatedly asked them what they were doing and told them to get off of her. Several other passengers seated nearby could also be heard speaking up, urging the officers to stop treating her so aggressively and to leave her alone.
The Woman Appeared to Be in Clear Distress
After the officers managed to force the woman off the train and onto the platform, they quickly rushed toward her again, grabbing and pulling at her arms as they now attempted to restrain her and place her in handcuffs.
During the intense scuffle between the three, the woman continued to tell them to stop touching her and insisted that she did not understand why she was being detained. At no point in the footage do the officers appear to clearly explain the reason for her arrest or read her rights, a detail that many viewers later pointed out in the comments. The officers eventually managed to press her against the tiled subway wall, holding her arms out as she still struggled and cried out.
A few passengers also exited the train and tried to intervene, with one woman even attempting to obtain the officers’ badge numbers. Although she was told by one of the officers to back off, the man who filmed the incident claimed that he was able to obtain one of the officers’ badge numbers, which he included in the caption of his TikTok post.
He encouraged viewers to share the footage and hold the officers accountable, while also emphasizing that the woman being arrested was not homeless and may have simply been exhausted after a long day of work and had fallen asleep during her commute.
Here’s What Netizens Are Saying About the New York Subway Incident
Many people in the comments section felt that the officers were wasting time and resources on what they viewed as a minor offense. “Being arrested for sleeping is wild 💀,” one person wrote. “Meanwhile there’s actual crime happening smh,” another commented.
Some also felt bad for the woman and were frustrated with how the situation was handled. One comment read, “Not telling her why she’s under arrest, not reading her, her rights..nothing.” Someone else said, “These videos literally break my heart.”
However, not all reactions were entirely sympathetic. Some netizens criticized the woman’s resistance, arguing that fighting police rarely leads to a positive outcome. “People who fight cops, what is the end goal? It’ll never make sense to me & u might even get hurt smh,” one viewer stated. Another person suggested there may have been more to the arrest, writing, “RIGHTTTTTTTT, THEY JUST WALKED UP TO HER FOR NO REASON AT ALL…. PEOPLE ARE SO BLIND.”
