Brooklyn school dean says MTA officers assaulted him over a $3 bus fare he says he paid

A Brooklyn public school dean said Wednesday he was brutally assaulted by MTA fare inspectors last week after he got off a bus on his way to work.

Kyle Taylor, a dean at Mott Bridges Academy in Brownsville, said members of the MTA’s EAGLE fare enforcement unit stopped him on a B14 bus at Rockaway and Pitkin avenues around 6:40 a.m. on Oct. 6, demanding he prove he paid his fare. He said he had paid through a paper transfer ticket, which bus drivers have sometimes given to workers.

Taylor said that as he walked past the agents to exit the bus, he was stopped by more fare inspectors who were waiting on the sidewalk.

Video footage from a nearby shop shared by Taylor’s attorney appears to show Taylor struggling with the agents as they grabbed him and pinned him against the bus. The footage shows the EAGLE team members slamming him against a bus shelter and knocking him to the ground until an NYPD officer came in to break up the commotion.

Taylor said he sat on a shelter bench and passed out for three minutes. He was taken from the scene to the hospital in an ambulance, the video shows, and Taylor said he injured his back, neck, shoulder, arm and elbow. He has not been able to return to work since and said he’s now afraid of going on buses.

“I’m in pain. I can’t sleep at night,” Taylor said Wednesday. “Every time I see someone that’s wearing a badge, it’s disturbing.”

A summary of the NYPD complaint filed by an EAGLE officer alleges Taylor “fell out of the bus” and refused medical attention, an account contradicted by the video footage.

Taylor plans to sue the MTA. Representatives for the transit agency declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.

The episode came as the MTA has launched an increasingly aggressive crackdown on riders who skip the fare on buses. Transit officials estimate nearly half of all the bus riders in the city don’t pay, which costs the agency upwards of $300 million annually.

The MTA reported fare evasion on buses increased during the first six months of 2026, when Mayor Zohran Mamdani entered office following a campaign pledge to make buses “fast and free.”

MTA Chair Janno Lieber in July said he planned to ramp up enforcement of fare evasion on buses, saying EAGLE team members could use special devices to check whether people paid their fares with OMNY. He noted OMNY was the only way to pay after the agency stopped accepting payments via MetroCards in June.

Lieber has for years said he wanted to avoid racial discrimination as he cracked down on fare evasion.

Taylor’s attorney Benjamin Pinczewski said the enforcement falls hardest on riders of color who depend on buses to get to work. NYPD data shows people of color made up more than 92% of all subway fare evasion summonses and 97% arrests during the first half of 2026.

The Rev. Kevin McCall, a civil rights activist, called the EAGLE teams’ increasing enforcement efforts a “new level of legal stop and frisk.”

“We are not in South Africa, where you have to show your ‘dompas’ to see if you actually belong in this country,” he said.

Taylor said he paid for his fare with a pretax transit card on another bus and asked the driver for a paper transfer, which he dropped in the fare box when he boarded the B14. That left him with no proof to show the inspectors, who then demanded to see his ID.

Taylor said he replied, “‘ID for what? Man, excuse me. Let me get to work.’”

He and advocates called for the inspectors to be fired and the unit to be equipped with body cameras like the ones that NYPD officers wear. McCall called on Gov. Kathy Hochul to investigate the unit and on state lawmakers to require body cameras for its inspectors.

“Unless this is stopped, unless the EAGLE Team is disbanded,” said Pinczewski. “Every single one of us could be impacted by it.”