The MTA has suspended four fare checkers involved in a violent incident in Brooklyn pending an investigation into how an effort to check on potential fare evasion turned into a physical clash, transit officials said Thursday.

“[NYC Transit President] Demetrius [Crichlow] and the team at Transit have elected to put those inspectors on the bench,” MTA chariman Janno Lieber told reporters. “They’re out of service, pending the investigation.”

Lieber said that he had reviewed the surveillance footage — first reported by the Daily News — showing members of the MTA’s Evasion and Graffiti Lawlessness Eradication (EAGLE) team pressing Brooklyn school aide Kyle Taylor up against a bus-stop shelter following a fare dispute that had turned physical.

“We are concerned about some of what we saw,” Lieber said.

The four fare-checkers have been suspended and were not on desk duty, a source briefed on the MTA’s internal investigation told the Daily News.

Taylor had been confronted by members of the team as he was getting off a B14 bus at Pitkin and Rockaway Aves. in Brownsville by agents charged with stopping rampant fare evasion on NYC buses, Taylor told the Daily News that the team asked him how he had paid his fare. When he said that it wouldn’t show up since he’d made a free transfer from a B15 bus, Taylor said the fare inspectors asked him for his ID. He refused.

“One of them said, ‘Give me your ID,’” Taylor said. “I said ‘I paid my fare. Why do you want my ID? Can I please get off the bus?’

They said, ‘You’re not getting off this bus.’”

Taylor said he then tried to “squeeze” past the agents and a physical clash ensued.

Surveillance footage from a nearby deli shows Taylor was then pinned against the outside of the bus and against the bus stop shelter by multiple EAGLE team members. One member of the team can be heard telling Taylor “You can not push an officer,” to which Taylor responds, “You’re not an officer.”

Comprised of unarmed transit employees, the MTA’s EAGLE teams have been tasked with combating fare evasion on the agency’s bus system, Since the switch to tap-to-pay fares on city buses, the EAGLE teams have been equipped with hand-held readers designed to verify that a debit card, credit card, OMNY card or phone has in fact been used to pay for the bus. Nearly half of the city’s bus riders don’t pay their fare, according to MTA data.

While members of the EAGLE teams are allowed to issue tickets for fare evasion, they are not members of the MTA’s police department, nor are they recognized by the state as peace officers. The video shows Taylor and a few of the EAGLE team members struggle at the bus shelter before falling to the ground.

“It is our expectation that we should be able to deal with our customers in a respectful manner,” Crichlow said Thursday.

“This is not indicative of the level of professionalism that we see or expect from our employees,” he said. “We train them specifically on how to engage with customers, conflict resolution, how to de-escalate situations — and so it is unfortunate that this situation wound up escalating.”

The NYPD arrived at the scene but filed no charges.

Taylor’s lawyer, Benjamin Pinczewski, told The News that the MTA should disband the EAGLE teams following the incident.

“While we are pleased to see [Lieber] is taking the matter seriously and has removed the four Eagle team members from active duty we demand they be terminated along with the entire unit,” Pinczewski said. “People who must use and rely on the MTA buses cannot be subjected to this kind of abuse harassment and trauma.”

Lieber said that the MTA was working with the NYPD to determine how the fare enforcement stop turned physical.

“They’re given a lot of training, especially in de-escalation — to avoid physicality,” Lieber said.

“There’s apparently a disagreement about how the physical stuff started. We don’t know, that’s why we’re investigating,” he said.

In a statement, a spokesman for Mayor Mamdani — who was elected in part on a promise of fare-free buses — encouraged the MTA’s investigation, and said the issue raised “serious questions” about the EAGLE teams.

“While the City does not oversee MTA Eagle teams, we take any accusation of excessive force seriously and we strongly encourage the MTA to investigate this incident thoroughly,” Jeremy Edwards said in a statement. “This raises serious questions about the MTA’s current strategy for collecting bus fares—no New Yorker should be concerned for their safety over three bucks.”

Mass politics elected Zohran Mamdani. Institutions are governing with him.

The fight over Jessica Tisch is teaching his movement a hard lesson: electing a mayor, and moving one, are different kinds of power.

Starts at 11 AM and heads south on Avenue B, from East 13th Street to East 7th Street at Tompkins Square Park. The festival block is on East 6th Street between Avenues B and C, 10 AM to 4 PM.

The iconic hotel is closing for a much needed face-lift.

The Knicks owner is urging New York’s business elite to abandon Gov. Kathy Hochul and has spent millions to back her opponent, Bruce Blakeman.

There are 5 Ballot Referendums or questions on this years ballot. We are focusing on #5 in this post.

You asked how to vote on the Referendums. 1-4 are up to you. We don't see any issue on those. On #5 - it is a HARD NO

QUESTION 5: VOTE NO.

Vote NO on Question 5 : because it doesn’t go far enough to protect New York City’s Retiree Health Benefit Trust Fund

First - what is the Retiree Health Benefit Trust? It is a fund that was created to pay for retiree healthcare in times when the budget has severe gaps - like in a major fiscal crisis - so funds can otherwise be allocated to other expenses. Your pension is guaranteed by the state constitution, but your healthcare is not. Your pension is also funded, but your healthcare is NOT! In 2006, the Council and Mayor created the Retiree Health Benefit Trust to make sure money was saved and invested to cover health care costs in a crisis. Unfortunately, the Mayors, including Mamdani, have taken money from the trust fund and used it for budget expenses when we were not in a true crisis. He left a $3.7 billion IOU in the fund in January to hopefully replaced in December.

The State Comptroller, TOm DiNapoli and the past 3 City Comptroller urged the City put rules in place how to save money to put into the fund and controls on how and when money can be taken out and replaced. That is not in the question. This version allows the City to do what it wants with this cash like a slush fund and that is not the safety net it was designed to be.

The City has had years of strong revenue growth, yet it has made only one deposit into its Rainy Day Fund which is designed to be tapped to use for the budget shortfalls. The fund has about $2 billion, when it should have nearly $14 billion to cover two years of a recession. Instead - they also take from the Retiree Health Benefit Trust. So we need to protect this and invest in it so current and FUTURE retirees have protection to fund their healthcare - or you might not have any security. Let's make them do this now.... the RIGHT WAY. VOTE NO.

So what does Question 5 actually accomplish? Not enough.

• It does not require deposits when the City has strong revenues. The City could still use other factors to justify not putting money aside to increase the savings.
• It still allows withdrawals for almost any reason, including the RETIREE HEALTH BENEFIT TRUST. That defeats the purpose of having money set aside for a real financial crisis.
• It creates a 12% target that could effectively be cut to just 6% by counting other reserves toward the goal. That would leave the City with enough to cover only about eight months of a recession—not two years.

We shouldn’t change the City Charter just to make it look like we’re fixing a problem. If the rules still allow the City to avoid saving money when times are good and take it out when it wants, then we haven’t solved anything. We’ve simply put the status quo into the Charter and made it harder to demand real reform.

The City needs stronger rules: mandatory deposits when revenues are strong, a Rainy Day Fund equal to 16% of tax revenues, and strict limits on withdrawals during recessions and severe emergencies.

Voting NO is not voting against a Rainy Day Fund. It’s voting against a weak proposal that could give the public the impression that the problem has been fixed when it hasn’t.

New Yorkers & Retirees deserve a real financial safety net—not another policy that sounds good on paper but falls short when it matters most.

And they should not be allowed to use the Retiree Health Benefit Trust as a budget gap filler like the Mayor did this year and other before him.

I'm all for expanding higher-level math in middle school and carefully adding some seats at the five newer specialized schools if they can handle it without dropping standards. But replacing the SHSAT or adding grades, recommendations, essays, or "background" to the admissions process is a nonstarter.

Both of my kids took the test. One of them, who is Latino, got in. The other didn't. The difference was that the one who got in studied hard for three years. The other only prepped for a year and not very seriously. The test rewards kids who put in the work, regardless of income. About half the students at these schools come from poverty or lower income households.

Changing the admissions rules just to force different racial numbers doesn't fix the real problem of uneven preparation in the earlier grades. It just weakens the schools that currently work for hardworking kids from every background.