The Metropolitan Transportation Authority said on Thursday that it was suspending its fare enforcement program on New York City buses, after one of its teams tackled a passenger in Brooklyn this month.
The program, Evasion and Graffiti Lawlessness Eradication, or EAGLE, employs roughly 350 unarmed inspectors who issue tickets to riders who cannot verify that they have paid the fare. The inspectors are hired by the M.T.A., the state agency that controls the city’s bus network, but they do not have the authority to arrest or detain passengers.
On Oct. 6, Kyle Taylor, a school aide heading to work, was wrestled to the ground by four inspectors in the Brownsville neighborhood after a dispute about his $3 bus fare, according to surveillance video reviewed by The New York Times. The video, from a nearby deli, was obtained by the Rev. Kevin McCall, a civil rights activist who is representing Mr. Taylor.
On Thursday, lawyers for Mr. Taylor said he would sue the authority and the four workers, who have not been named. Mr. Taylor, who is Black, is accusing the authority of unfairly targeting people of color.
Janno Lieber, the authority’s chief executive, said the altercation, as well as another incident that occurred months ago but was only recently brought to his attention, had led him to pause the enforcement program until an investigation could be conducted.
“I was not happy that leadership of the M.T.A., and even New York City Transit, didn’t even hear about that episode until more than a week afterward,” he said. New York City Transit is the division of the authority that handles bus operations.
“I’m not willing to keep our teams active in the field until I know all protocols are followed,” he said, calling the suspension a temporary “stand down.”
Aaron Donovan, an M.T.A. spokesman, described the earlier incident as a “fare dispute” between a passenger and inspectors on Aug. 6 on the Bx39 route in the Bronx. He did not provide further details.
Mr. Donovan said EAGLE teams would continue to be paid during the suspension and would be “involved in training activities” as well as other assignments, including security and vandalism prevention.
The M.T.A. said the United Federation Law Enforcement Officers Security and Police Benevolent Association represented the inspectors. The union did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Taylor, 53, said in an interview last week that he had paid his bus fare using an OMNY card and had then requested a single-use, paper transfer slip to board a second bus. The OMNY card is designed to provide a free transfer within two hours of payment, but some passengers worry that they may be charged a second time, so they request paper transfers.
Mr. Taylor said that when he exited the second bus, four EAGLE inspectors asked him to prove that he paid the fare, but he had already inserted his paper transfer into the farebox.
It is unclear from the video what was said before the altercation, but the inspectors can be seen pushing Mr. Taylor into the corner of a bus shelter and tackling him to the ground. After the encounter, Mr. Taylor appears to collapse on the pavement. He was later taken to a hospital.
Benjamin Pinczewski, a lawyer for Mr. Taylor, compared the EAGLE program to the police tactic known as stop and frisk, which was deemed unconstitutional because it led to racial profiling.
Betsy Plum, the executive director of Riders Alliance, a transit advocacy group that has criticized the program, applauded the suspension.
“Aggressive tactics that hurt people and slow down the bus cannot meet New Yorkers’ needs or address public transit’s persistent fiscal challenges,” she said in a statement.
The M.T.A. began a version of EAGLE in 2008, but ramped up enforcement this year after the MetroCard was discontinued and most riders switched to the OMNY digital payment system.
Fare evasion on public buses has soared since the Covid-19 pandemic, with nearly half of the city’s 2.6 million daily bus riders skipping payment. That cost the M.T.A. $562 million last year, according to the Citizens Budget Commission, a fiscal watchdog group.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani has promised to make the bus network free for all, in part to eliminate tense or violent interactions between passengers and transit workers. The M.T.A. has not endorsed the plan, which it said could cost roughly $1 billion a year in forgone revenue.
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