Assemblymember Mathylde Frontus (D-Coney Island, Bay Ridge, Brighton Beach, Sea Gate) held a press conference Monday, January 11, with a group of Coney Island youth and their families to protest racial profiling at the Bay Parkway subway station at 86 Street.
“We are standing here today to say no to racial profiling. We shouldn’t have to be here to say that, but the reality is that racial profiling is alive and well and it actually costs hundreds if not thousands of Black and Latino lives every single year in the United States of America,” said Frontus. “Every single time that you look at another human being and you make an assumption about them, whether it’s a woman in a hijab, a young black boy, someone with tattoos, every time you profile them you are one step closer to harm because it never ends well.”
The boys, all Black and Brown ranging in age from 12 to 17, were returning home on December 27, 2020, when they said they had an encounter with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) employee. Upon entering the station, they said, the MTA employee announced that he was calling the police and accusing the boys of intending to fair hop. When they protested the treatment and started arguing, they said, the MTA employee claimed they were assaulting him in the booth. Part of this was captured on their cell phones. The cops arrived after the youths had left. The police escorted them off the B-82 bus, that they had travelled to at that time, without incident or arrests and let the boys go home once they ascertained their side of the story.
He said he and his friends were afraid of the cops being “trigger happy” given history and recent events but they were polite.
“They told us to go home and stay out of trouble like we did something,” said Sincere Quinones,15, describing what happened. Quinones said that the MTA agent singled out one of his friends, Miguel Navaaro, 17, and called him a racial slur.
Quinones and his father, Victor, said they have no intention of pursuing a lawsuit but stand against the trauma this incident caused.
“I’m pretty much disgusted. My son came home shaken, screaming. He just let me know that nothing could be done and he was crying that nobody cares,” said Quinones’ father. “I don’t like that. He should be able to go in the train, all they wanted to do was go home. They were there because they’re good kids.”
Quinones’ father said his son and his friends regularly volunteer to feed the homeless and give out coats during the winter with community leader Muneca Lozada, and were recently rewarded gift cards for community service by Frontus just before the subway incident. Quinones also posted video of the MTA worker on his popular show, Kids Want To Know, to raise awareness of racial profiling and used it as a basis for the complaint he filed.
Frontus said that the agency has opened a formal investigation, and each of the boys is preparing a Title VI discrimination complaint against the MTA.
The MTA confirmed that they have been working closely with Frontus on the matter. They said the station agent in question has been employed for 18 months and has no prior disciplinary history, and they have not yet concluded their investigation but will determine if disciplinary action is needed then.
“All customers of the transit system have the right to be treated with respect by our personnel – equal respect for all customers, regardless of skin color, race, age, gender, clothing styles, or any other personal attribute. This isn’t only the right thing to do, it’s also required by law,” said MTA Spokesperson Aaron Donovan.
“We are investigating this incident fully, and have been doing so since it was brought to our attention. Even prior to concluding our investigation, we have decided to use this situation as a teaching moment for all of our customer-facing personnel, by developing both refresher and new training content around bias. We are grateful to Assemblymember Frontus for her leadership on this issue,” said Donovan.
