Police Officers as a form of Entertainment

Sometimes even the police need help from the police.

Like Camille San Filippo and Jannet Velez, two of New York's Finest who witnessed a perp in the act, chased  the perp down into the nearby subway station, and were injured in the struggle.

San Filippo and Velez, though in plainclothes at the time, showed their shields to one Corbin, the New York City Transit Authority toll agent on duty at the time, who was safely ensconced in the toll booth.  San Filippo and Velez asked Corbin to call for reinforcements, which Corbin could easily have done by pushing a button and/or depressing a pedal.

But Corbin declined to do so.

When San Filippo and Velez sued the NYCTA and its parent entity, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the trial judge ruled in the defendant's favor and dismissed the lawsuit.  The Appellate Division, to its credit, reversed, and reinstated the lawsuit.

I will note that:

1.  New York City, you will recall, is where, in 1964, 38 people watched and did nothing as Kitty Genovese was beaten, raped and murdered before their eyes.

2.  I attended only one live professional boxing match in my life.  It was then that I realized that at such events, the gentlemen are the guys in the ring.  The wild animals are the people in the audience.  I don't care to be one of them, but I support their right to attend a boxing match for entertainment.  If you get your jollies watching such violence, then by all means go to the boxing match, but don't endanger the on-duty cops and the public by treating a scuffle with a perp as a spectator sport for you to drool over.

3.  As this post is being written, the MTA is actively promoting its "If you see something, say something" public safety campaign.  Query:  How can the MTA expect public cooperation when its own boys and girls don't say something when they see something?