CCNY'S INDEPENDENT
STUDENT NEWSPAPER
MAY 2000 VOLUME
2, NUMBER 5
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CCNY'S INDEPENDENT
STUDENT NEWSPAPER |
CCNY Student Sent to the Tombs for Turnstile
Jumping
by Hank Williams
City College student Simen Saetre learned a lesson about the American criminal justice system that he would rather not have when he was jumped a turnstile at the 137th St. and Broadway subway station. Saetre had an unlimited ride Metrocard, but jumped the turnstile to catch the train that had just entered the station. What happened next was a lesson in the tactics of the New York Police Department’s zero-tolerance policy even on petty “crime.”
Saetre caught the train, but was arrested and handcuffed by undercover police. Saetre produced both his Metrocard and identification, but he was placed under arrest and transported to the police station where his picture and fingerprints were taken.
Saetre says that he was then taken downtown where he was held overnight. The police finally allowed him to see a lawyer and he was taken before the judge. He has to perform one day of community service and the judge claims that he will have no criminal record, although his fingerprints and photograph remain on file with the NYPD. He was held an entire day and missed classes the next day.
While Saetre admits that he was wrong and made a mistake, he is upset at his treatment by the police, who he says showed him no respect. Saetre doesn’t think it needs to be like that. “Even though you commit a crime, you are still a person,” he explains.
Saetre, who is from Norway, has a different view of the police now. “In
Norway, police are fair; they’re role models.” Saetre doesn’t feel the
same way about the NYPD. He feels that that their approach to petty crime is
wrong also. “Making people go through [what I did] will only make people lose
respect for the system.”
Saetre’s crime was recorded as “theft of service” ($1.50 of it) and “trespassing.”
“Apparently,” he concludes, “[the police] haven’t enough to do.”
The irony of this isn’t lost on Saetre, who often studies in City College’s dilapidated Cohen Library. “Things [at City College] don’t work, there aren’t up-to date textbooks, and bathrooms don’t have toilet paper…[But] instead of using money on education at City, [the government has] money to keep police at the station and catch students jumping the turnstile.”
Saetre’s experience gives him a perspective on the shooting deaths that have occurred. Police brutality and the shootings are the “natural consequences of how [the police] operate, their methods, how they think, their education … as long as the system isn’t totally changed, [brutality] will still happen.”
The whole incident has given him a clearer picture of the contradictions in society today. Saetre says that he now sees that “placing police all over is a kind of system that doesn’t work. When you educate people, they will commit less crime,” he continues, adding that “instead of spending money on police [the government] should spend it on education.”
Saetre notes the irony of how the American government has classified so many other countries as police states, adding that he’s been to Colombia, Cuba, China, and Russia. “This would not happen there,” he asserts.
To add insult to injury, Saetre says that when he went to reclaim his property from the police station the next day the batteries were missing from his pager. He replaced them: for $1.50. So, they got their money back? “Yeah, I suppose so,” he concludes wryly.