The MTA's budget just got $5.6 million less expensive. Yesterday a judge threw out a multi-million dollar verdict awarded by a jury against the Transit Authority because token booth clerks are under no obligation to call for help, even when asked to by two female officers fighting with a cross-dressing perp.
You see, back in 2002 officers Jannett Velez, 34, and Camille San Filippo, 46, spotted two fun folks getting down and dirty on the Deuce and tried to intervene. One part of the couple, a man dressed as a woman, ran down into the Times Square station while the other, "believed to be a woman," escaped. In the station the two cops fought with the perp for ten minutes, all while calling for the token clerk to get back-up. The clerk, for his part, testified that "he saw no need to use his booth's emergency call system since cops were already on the scene."
The two officers have both since retired from the force, one with shoulder injuries suffered in the fight and one with chronic pain in her right ankle, according to their lawyer. "It's an outrage," he told the News. "All he had to do was press a button." He probably just wanted to take a nap?
