Metro

DA faults NYPD in call not to charge vagrants in subway platform melee

Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. on Wednesday said it’s the NYPD’s fault that his office cut loose the homeless men caught on camera attacking a cop in a Manhattan subway station — because they were only busted for illegally sleeping on the platform, which no longer gets prosecuted under a 2016 accord.

Vance spokesman Danny Frost said prosecutors didn’t know the vagrants “were suspected of anything other than sleeping on the subway” when they got hauled into court Monday night — even though video of the attack, first reported by The Post, prompted multiple news reports earlier in the day.

“Hypothetically, if police had charged them for the conduct in the video, or even alerted us that they were involved in a previous altercation with an officer, we would not have declined to prosecute,” Frost said.





“We would still prosecute for the altercation if they are properly arrested for the altercation and will assist the NYPD in its investigation.”

The NYPD didn’t immediately return a request for comment Wednesday afternoon, but a high-ranking police source said Officer Syed Ali had treated his attackers simply as “emotionally disturbed persons” and didn’t arrest them.

“We are currently working with [the] cop and [the] DA to charge for attempted assault,” the source added.

Online video of the Sunday night incident in the East Broadway subway station shows Ali, an Army Reserve combat veteran, using a collapsible baton to fight off a group of drunken vagrants, one of whom tumbled onto the tracks.





Five of the men were later taken for hospital treatment and released, but cops arrested five men for sleeping on the platform on Monday morning and an NYPD spokesman said it would be up to the DA’s Office to decide whether to prosecute them in the caught-on-camera attack.

Those men were all released when prosecutors dropped the illegal-sleeping charges Monday night, citing a 2016 policy endorsed by the NYPD.

Meanwhile, outrage mounted over the situation Wednesday, with several pols joining in criticism of Vance first leveled by the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association.

“This is like one of the rare occasions where me and the PBA agree,” said City Councilman Donovan Richards (D-Queens), chairman of the Public Safety Committee and a member of the council’s Progressive Caucus.





“While I’m big on reform, we’ll always call out when officers do the right thing. This is one of the incidents where the training kicked in and he de-escalated as much as he could and at the end of the day, these [suspects] should have been arrested and charged with something higher.”

“I don’t know the particulars about these individuals … but no one should get away with thinking it’s OK to attack an officer,” he added.

Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island, Brooklyn) said: “Through his policies to not prosecute quality of life crimes or deter turnstile jumping, Cy Vance has invited lawlessness into New York’s subway stations.”

“Now, the Manhattan District Attorney refuses to prosecute those caught on video attacking a police officer. This is unacceptable,” she added.





On Twitter, Malliotakis, who tried to unseat Mayor Bill de Blasio last year, also invoked Hizzoner’s Tuesday statement that “Attacking our men and women in uniform won’t ever be tolerated.”

“[B]ut the district attorney dropped ALL charges and the five men were back on the platform the very next day. That sounds like the attack is being tolerated to me, @NYCMayor,” she tweeted.

City Councilman Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island) also tweeted: “Welcome to #NYC, where you can have a full-blown 5-on-1 karate fight with a cop and not be prosecuted.”





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