OFFICERS REMOVE SUBWAY RIDER AS HE CONFRONTS THEM OVER MASKS

NEW YORK» A police officer grabs a male commuter by his jacket and pushes him through an emergency exit door at a subway station in Manhattan, video posted to social media shows. “You’re being disruptive,” the officer tells him.

The man in the 35-second video clip — which has garnered more than 1 million views and ushered in a fresh wave of criticism of the police — said the confrontation erupted when he asked the officer and his partner to put on masks.

Andrew Gilbert, 27, said he had just gotten off the train on his way to work about 8:45 a.m. Tuesday when he approached two officers at the Eighth Street subway station in Manhattan who were not wearing masks and asked them to put them on, as is required.

The MTA requires masks to be worn inside subway stations and on trains, and the Police Department requires officers to wear face coverings in public transit settings.

“The male officer sort of started playing dumb with me, saying, like, “I can’t hear what you’re saying through your mask,” Gilbert said Wednesday.

The back-and-forth continued for about a minute, Gilbert said, before the male officer shoved him about 80 feet backward and pushed him out of the exit door. “If you’re not going to ride the train, just get out,” Gilbert said the officer told him.

Gilbert can be heard asking the officer and his partner, who he said held open the door but did not otherwise participate, for their badge numbers. He never received them, he said.

The flouting of mask mandates by some police officers in New York City has been the subject of criticism throughout the pandemic. Face coverings have been required on the city’s public transit and at indoor subway stations since April 2020. But many reports on social media and in local news outlets have drawn attention to instances of officers ignoring those rules.

“My biggest thought was just disappointment,” said Gilbert, who is from Queens. “It’s an endless stream of incidents like this, and every single time it’s sort of the same thing. Politicians talk about how terrible it is, and then nothing happens. There’s no follow-up. With the officers involved, there’s never any accountability. And the same thing happens a week later.”

The police department said Wednesday the incident in the video was under internal review. Mayor Bill de Blasio said at his news conference that he expected the officers involved to receive discipline from the department. “I was troubled by that video. I didn’t like what I saw one bit,” he said.

De Blasio noted that he had not seen the full lead-up to the interactions. “But I saw the officers not wearing their masks in the subway. That’s evident. That’s unacceptable,” he said. “We’ve given this instruction a thousand times: If you’re going to be in law enforcement, you actually have to participate in following the law.”

De Blasio’s remarks came as he announced that all city workers — including police officers — must be vaccinated by the end of the month or lose their paychecks.