{"id":381132,"date":"2026-10-23T21:44:31","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T21:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/381132\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T21:44:31","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T21:44:31","slug":"mta-suspends-all-bus-fare-enforcement-teams-after-clashes-with-riders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/381132\/","title":{"rendered":"MTA suspends all bus fare enforcement teams after clashes with riders"},"content":{"rendered":"

All fare enforcement teams will be pulled off of city buses until the MTA can investigate two allegations of improper use of force, MTA Chairman Janno Lieber said Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not willing to keep our teams in the filed until I know that all protocols are being followed,\u201d Lieber said, reading from a prepared statement at an unrelated press conference. \u201cI\u2019m ordering an immediate safety stand-down until these investigations conclude.\u201d<\/p>\n

As previously reported by the Daily News<\/a>, the MTA had already removed four members of the agency\u2019s Evasion and Graffiti Lawlessness Eradication (EAGLE<\/a>) from the street following a violent fare-check in Brownsville earlier this month.<\/p>\n

In that incident, surveillance footage \u2014 first reported by the Daily News<\/a> \u2014 showed the fare-checkers pushing Brooklyn school aide Kyle Taylor up against a bus stop shelter following a fare dispute that had turned physical.<\/p>\n

Taylor fell to the ground twice during the altercation, at one point hitting his head on the bus shelter bench.<\/p>\n

A week later, after multiple media outlets asked the MTA about the incident, the four were put on modified duty pending an investigation into the incident.<\/p>\n

Lieber said Thursday that another, earlier incident had since come to light, leading him to temporarily suspend all EAGLE team operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was not happy that leadership of the MTA and New York City Transit didn\u2019t even hear about that episode until more than a week afterward,\u201d Lieber said. \u201cIt now appears that there is another episode where that failure to timely report is even more extreme \u2014 the incident that\u2019s come to attention is now several months old.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRiders deserve complete confidence that our fare enforcement is fair and courteous,\u201d he said. \u201cOur EAGLE teams won\u2019t be re-entering the field until I am confident that their training \u2014 and their reporting and investigation protocols \u2014 meet our high standards.\u201d<\/p>\n

The MTA did not provide any further information on the earlier EAGLE team incident.<\/p>\n

Lieber said the MTA\u2019s head of security \u2014 former NYPD Transit Chief Michael Kemper \u2014 would be heading up an internal investigation into the EAGLE teams.<\/p>\n

The news was welcomed by transit advocates at Riders Alliance.<\/p>\n

\u201cBus riders know firsthand the failings of EAGLE team fare enforcement and we commend MTA leadership for today\u2019s decision,\u201d Betsy Plum, the group\u2019s director, said in a statement. \u201cAggressive tactics that hurt people and slow down the bus cannot meet New Yorkers\u2019 needs or address public transit\u2019s persistent fiscal challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

The unarmed EAGLE teams have been tasked in recent years with cracking down on fare evasion on the MTA\u2019s bus network. While EAGLE team members are allowed to issue tickets for fare evasion, they are not members of the MTA\u2019s police department, nor are they recognized by the state as peace officers.<\/p>\n

The MTA estimates that roughly 49% of city bus riders do not pay their fare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All fare enforcement teams will be pulled off of city buses until the MTA can investigate two allegations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[139686,31846,139685,745,2423,137714,75,84,83,3887,9,24,63,21010,137699],"class_list":["post-381132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-bus-fare","tag-eagle-teams","tag-fare-evasion-teams","tag-investigation","tag-janno-lieber","tag-kyle-taylor","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-mta-buses","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-buses","tag-use-of-force"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}