A maskless NYPD officer shoved a commuter out of a subway station in Greenwich Village Monday morning after a confrontation regarding masks in the subway system.
The passenger, identified as Andy Gilbert on Twitter, said that while on his way to work he noticed the two officers not wearing face coverings in the subway station. Per NYPD policy, all officers are required to wear face coverings when interacting with the public regardless of vaccination status. MTA guidelines also require anyone on trains, busses, subways, and in stations to be wearing face coverings.
Gilbert told PIX11 News that he's started filming when he notices these incidents.
“I’ve taken to filming them whenever I see them doing this in the subway, so I walked over and asked them why they weren’t masked. The male officer kept pretending he couldn’t hear what I was saying, he told me ‘I can’t hear you through your mask.'”
According to Gilbert, after he repeatedly asked the officers to mask up, they declared him as being "disruptive." That's when video shows him being shoved about 60 feet to an emergency exit where he was removed from the station and told "If you're not going to ride the train, you can leave."
The NYPD is one of the "largest and most public-facing agencies" in New York City, but its vaccination rate remains in the bottom 10 out of other city departments at just 69% as of October 15th.
The incident is under internal review according to the NYPD.