Here’s a stunning idea — arming transit workers with Tasers so they can zap bad guys who menace them.
It’s the brainchild of state Sen. Eric Adams (D-Brooklyn), who wants bus drivers, subway conductors and other transit workers to be able to protect themselves and passengers from crazy riders, criminals and even would-be terrorists.
Transport Workers Union Local 100 is supporting Adams’ legislative effort because it is tired of its members being “treated like punching bags” by irate riders, said the local’s president, John Samuelsen.
“Equipping and training our members to responsibly use Tasers will end the assaults that are currently plaguing our members,” Samuelsen said. “Additionally, it will act as a strong deterrent against crime against our riders on the buses and trains.”
Subway workers and bus drivers were physically assaulted 94 times last year, up from 72 recorded incidents the prior year, Metropolitan Transportation Authority data show. Transit workers were harassed, including being spit upon, 1,092 times last year, after 936 such incidents were logged in 2010.
Taser devices deliver a current of electricity that is designed to temporarily immobilize a subject.
Adams, a retired NYPD captain, introduced a bill last year to allow Amtrak and commuter railroad workers and subway train crews to carry Tasers. It was buried in the state Senate’s Codes Committee.
But now, spurred by the rise in attacks on bus and subway workers, the Brooklyn Democrat is amending the bill to include bus drivers, believing it may fare better in a different Senate committee, such as Transportation.
The 37,000-member Local 100 will make Adams’ bill a centerpiece of a major conference on transit worker assaults that it will hold next month.
The MTA and the NYPD, however, are not at all charged up about the idea — they oppose it.
The NYPD doesn’t allow regular police officers to carry Tasers; the power is reserved for sergeants and those in the elite Emergency Service Unit, who receive extra training, said Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne.
“The MTA makes protecting our transit personnel a top priority in everything we do,” MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota said.
“However, the proposed legislation is the wrong way to go about protecting MTA employees. Asking them to carry weapons would cross the line into law enforcement, a function that is best left to the NYPD.”
(Source: NY Daily News)
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5 Responses
Absolutely a bad idea. The NYPD and MTA are right. This is completely impossible.
Now if we were talking about dedicated MTA security personnel, that would be something else – but even then, tasers go too far; I would recommend stab vests, pepper spray and small batons then, combined with light emergency handcuffs.
An increase in staffing equipped per above would be the solution, however, this should not be the task of the drivers, rather of dedicated security teams. Closer cooperation with police would also be required.
I don’t know how serious violence gets out there. In Rotterdam, violence towards public transit workers sometimes escalates to employees being beaten up and threatened with weapons; the solution has so far been to use teams that are sufficiently large that troublemakers are easily outnumbered and cornered in until police arrive.
But tasers? No way.
This idiot probably thinks tasers are no big deal. He doesn’t realise they can kill.
If he’s so concerned about protecting MTA workers why not just accept that the Bill of Rights does not contain an exception for New York, and MTA workers like everyone else are entitled to keep and bear arms for their own protection?
As a former new york transit employee that was shot in the line of duty I DEMAND the right to use a taser
For anyone interested in what happened after I was shot please read my pirkei avot book which should be advertised here in teh very near future
That means massive training, not to mention liability insurance. Police make more than transit workers. Part of it is that they have to be trained in, and qualified to use weapons. Giving weapons to transit workers is really deciding to use cops to run transit. It would be very expensive, might reduce crime, and would certainly slow down transit.