A couple on a date was forcefully removed from a New York subway train due to a case of mistaken identity.
In a video taken by another passenger, an unidentified couple pleaded with police officers as they were inexplicably removed from a train car, reports the New York Post reports.
The incident happened on Feb. 24 around 1 a.m. in Brooklyn. About 10 cops boarded the train after they apparently received a call about a man brandishing a weapon. They zeroed in on a man who reportedly fit the description and removed him from the train.
“What did I do? What did I do? I just came off a date,” he told the officers.
They also removed the woman who was with him.
“Get off of me! Get the f–k off of me!” she shouted. She also asked why they were bothering her date.
The couple was not identified, but the Post reports they were charged with disorderly conduct and released.
Passenger Neely Grobani filmed the encounter and posted it on Twitter.
“We all wondered what was going on as about 15 cops stood on
one side the closed doors and we all sat on the other,” she wrote. “As soon as
the doors opened, the cops rushed in and grabbed the young man I was sitting
across from. They grabbed his girlfriend as soon as she tried to follow him to
figure out what was going on.”
The video went viral and has been viewed more than 159,000 times. Grobani told PIX11 filming the incident was the least she could do.
“It became really clear that whatever they were looking for
was not on this couple,” she recalled. “It was stressful and I wasn’t sure what
I could do in that situation — and the one thing I could do was film it, so I
did.”
Grobani could not see justification for the roust, because the couple was haD been snoozing together on their seat before the NYPD stormed the train car. Also, the cops did not tell anyone what was going on.
“The fact that they were looking for something and there
were people on the train, they could’ve asked: ‘Did anyone see something?’ They
didn’t engage at all. It was upsetting and concerning to me,” Grobani said.
The officers searched the train and platform but did not
recover a gun. It is unclear if they found their actual suspect.