City Denies Homeless 'Sweep' Of Brooklyn Subway Stations Before Mayor's Ride

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — Officials are pushing back on a report that NYPD officers were ordered to "sweep" two Brooklyn subway stations for homeless people before the mayor took a publicized ride.

The New York Post on Tuesday night published what it called a "damning" email purporting to come from an officer at the NYPD's Transit Bureau. In it, "Police Officer Nandoo" says officers are to check for vagrants at the Fourth Avenue-Ninth Street and Jay Street-Metro Tech Stations before the mayor's arrival.

"Before the Mayor arrives at the 4th Avenue station, the officers are to sweep the station for homeless persons as well as the Jay Street station," the email said. "There will be press at the 4th Avenue station."

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Eric Phillips, a spokesman for the mayor, said the report "isn't true."

"Zero evidence cops 'swept' station of anyone, much less that City Hall had it done. It's absurd," Phillips said Tuesday night in a Twitter exchange with a Post editor, Neil Sloane.

"There was never any sweep of homeless people. It's bogus. But I suspect everyone actually knows that," Phillips later added.

On Wednesday morning Phillips said, "There was no sweep. There is no evidence of a sweep. There's actual evidence of the opposite."

De Blasio himself said he had "no idea if that report is true," but attacked the Post's credibility, saying "the outlet that ran it often is not factually based."

"I'm not sure that report has any semblance of truth," de Blasio told New York 1. "There was a homeless man when I got out of the subway and went over to my campaign headquarters who came up to me with his concerns about a shelter that we're looking into."

Late Monday night, the New York Daily News refuted the Post's reporting, citing "police officials."

Calling the Post "a certain fact-challenged local tabloid," the Daily News reported that, "While police were told to do a routine security check in a couple of stations on the F train subway line because of the mayor’s visit, they were never told by anyone, including the mayor, to kick out the homeless, a senior police official said."

The Daily News said officers did sweeps of the stations for security issues, and while homeless people may have been mentioned, "there was no order to get them out of the stations."

Phillips, the mayor's spokesman, said on Twitter that he's "encouraging everyone to read both stories. They can judge for themselves."

Read more from the New York Daily News here.

Read more from the New York Post here.

Image via Harrison Leong, used under Creative Commons