NYPD Officer Forcibly Arrests Man For Recording In Subway (Video)

Disturbing video emerged showing an NYPD Officer using unnecessary force to wrongly arrest a man that was recording another arrest in progress on the subway station platform.

Shawn Thomas was recording an NYPD officer detaining a man who allegedly had jumped the subway turnstile when another officer identified as Efrain Rojas comes into frame and notices him recording. Thomas says by counting the subway tiles, you can verify that he is at least 30-feet away from the crime scene. Officer Efrain Rojas proceeds to pull out his phone and begins recording Thomas as he walks towards him.

Efrain Rojas

Thomas audibly tells the officer, “You’re violating my personal space.” to which Rojas (who walked all the way over to Thomas) replies, “You’re violating my personal space too,” Thomas who seems a bit agitated at the officer then begins to use more colorful language telling him to “back the f*ck up!” The two continue to have a back and forth with one another until officer Rojas tells Thomas to leave the subway. When Thomas doesn’t reply, he is forcibly removed and arrested.

Thomas says at this point the phone was knocked out of his hand and he was slammed to the ground. Luckily a bystander pulled out his phone and began recording the arrest outside the subway station. The bystander later found Thomas on Facebook and gave him the recording.

Shawn Thomas Injuries

In Officer Rojas’ incident report,he claims Thomas was in “very close proximity” to his partner while he was issuing the summons and he refused to “step back” when asked “repeatedly” to do so. Rojas also states after being “escorted” out of the subway station, Thomas “continued to film deponent and closely follow deponent back into said train station.”

The arrest report concludes: “False statements in this documents are punishable as a class A misdemeanor pursuant to Section 210.45 of the penal law.”

Efrain Rojas Incident Report

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