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The MTA’s fare crackdown is going great!
Four members of the agency’s “EAGLE” fare inspection team were caught on video roughing up a Brooklyn school dean and slamming him against the side of a bus shelter over a $3 fare that he says he paid.
The rider group Passengers United now wants to end the inspection program as the fare “beaters” are suspended pending a probe.
Video showed the inspectors forcing Kyle Taylor off a bus and slamming him against a bus shelter, his clothing riding up to expose his stomach and cover his face as they held him against the glass.
One inspector pressed his body against Taylor, pinning him to the shelter, the video showed.
Another inspector — his jacket bearing large white “MTA NYCT” lettering across the back — paced nearby while talking on the phone, according to the footage.
Later in the video, Taylor tried to pull free, but inspectors threw him to the sidewalk while shouting at him to “relax.”
“Why?” Taylor could be heard asking.
An NYPD officer intervened and separated him from the inspectors.
Taylor, a dean at Mott Bridges Academy in Brownsville, was heading to work when inspectors stopped him on a B14 bus at Rockaway and Pitkin avenues around 6:40 a.m. Oct. 6, his attorney, Benjamin Pinczewski, told The Post.
He paid with a pretax transit card on an earlier bus, then dropped his paper transfer into the B14’s fare box, leaving him without proof of payment when inspectors demanded identification, Pinczewski said.
“We have the receipts,” the lawyer said. “To treat a human being in such an inhumane way makes no sense whether it’s over a $3 fare or a $300 fare. We’re all human beings and we deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.”
Taylor was taken by ambulance to a hospital with injuries to his back, neck, shoulder, arm and elbow, according to Pinczewski, who said his client has been unable to return to work and is now afraid to ride buses.
Taylor filed a harassment complaint, as did one of the fare inspectors, according to the NYPD. No arrests were made.
MTA Chairman Janno Lieber acknowledged Thursday that aspects of the footage were “concerning” and said the inspectors were “on the bench” pending an investigation.
“You never want our folks to be in physical altercations with customers. It’s something we work hard to avoid,” Lieber said at an unrelated press conference.
Passengers United is calling on Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James to halt the entire program pending answers about inspectors’ training and accountability.
The group said it sent James a letter requesting an investigation and wants to know why inspectors aren’t equipped with body cameras.
“There is no excuse for aggression or violence from fare inspectors,” the group said. “Conduct like this damages public trust in the MTA and does nothing to bring New Yorkers back to public transit. Bus riders deserve better.”
Pinczewski said Taylor plans to sue — but also wants to keep others from suffering the same treatment.
“Everyone who rides the bus should be safe from something like this happening to them,” he said.
“We’re truly moving toward a police state. The people who are just supposed to check fares think they can body slam people?” Pinczewski said. “How do you do that over a three dollar fare?”
The unarmed EAGLE team “enforcers” were deployed in 2024 at bus stops and buses in the Big Apple to combat soaring fare evasion, which costs the MTA hundreds of millions a year.