Radicals’ rail storm
Anti-cop vandals swarm subways
Cop-hating radicals wreaked havoc on the city’s transit system Friday morning, scrawling antipolice graffiti on subway-station walls and MTA buses — but their attempt to shut down Grand Central Terminal during the evening rush was a bust.
The agitators — who want police completely out of the subways and transit to be free — secured emergency gates open with bike locks, zip-ties and violin strings, rendered MetroCard turnstiles useless with glue and spray paint and defaced buses, stations and trains with messages such as “F--k cops, f--k MTA” and “Free transit.”
“We encourage you to link up with your friends, your family and think of the ways you can move in affinity to f--k s--t up on J-31 [Jan. 31] all day long,” a masked man said ahead of the day of protest in a video posted to the Twitter account of Decolonize This Place, the group that organized the demonstrations.
The masked man listed the group’s goals as “no cops in the MTA, free transit, no harassment . . . and full accessibility.”
The protests began Friday morning with agitators scrawling anti-cop graffiti on walls and display screens at the 72nd Street B/C train station on the Upper West Side at 7 a.m., cops said.
Just before 8 a.m., they strung a large black banner reading, “F--k your $2.75. Fare strike today,” from the Oculus at the World Trade Center station, video posted by the group showed. People clapped and cheered as the banner was unfurled.
Vandals then struck at the 155th Street C-train station, painting anti-cop slogans on the walls.
Police received reports of graffiti as well as glue lining turnstile MetroCard strips, at the 115th Street A/C station, the 145th Street A/C station, the 155th Street C station, the 96th Street B/C station and Borough Hall station in Brooklyn, authorities said.
Cops said they were also searching for a vandal who used a metal chain to shatter the screen of one of the MTA’s new OMNY fare-card readers at the West 50th Street/Eighth Avenue station at about 10 a.m.
At about 5 p.m., demonstrators, some in masks, flooded Grand Central in an attempt to shut down the commuter hub — but the protest did little more than tick off commuters.
There were at least 12 arrests following skirmishes between cops and demonstrators — who made their way to Brooklyn after disrupting commuters in Midtown.
At Grand Central, some of the agitators attempted to approach a subway entrance, only to find it blocked off.
Others chanted while holding signs with messages including, “Money for elevators not more cops,” “F- -k the police, fight the power,” and “No fare, no cops.”
Grand Central commuters were unimpressed with the ruckus, which ended in 30 minutes.
“I think it’s absurd. Things aren’t free; things cost money,” said one Westchester-bound traveler. “Asking for free stuff, it’s like they’re 12-year-olds. They’re acting like children!”
A broken OMNY machine costs the MTA $2,000 to replace, sources said.
MTA Chief Safety Officer Pat Warren said protests “divert valuable time, money and resources away from investments in transit services that get New Yorkers to their jobs, schools, doctors and other places they need to go.”