As straphangers filed onto my Q train at Canal St. on Monday night, I let out an inward sighed. A “Showtime!” crew in full regalia with musical accompaniment boarded my train. They announced their routine, and before legs and hats and arms could go flying, they stopped. The big guy standing near the door seemed like an undercover cop and nearly confirmed as much. The troupe decided against risking it, sat out the ride across the Manhattan Bridge and quietly switched cars.
Now, watching a Showtime crew give up isn’t a new experience. Sometimes, they board a train at rush hour that’s too crowed for the routine; sometimes, riders simply will not move over to clear enough space. Before starting a fight, they wait and move on at the next stop. (They target the Q, of course, because the bench seating on the new rolling stock leads to wide aisles.) Still, I had never seen kids stop in their tracks due to the potential presence of a plain-clothes officer.
Lately, under Commission Bill Bratton so-called quality-of-life crimes have come under police scrutiny, and as The Times detailed yesterday, subway acrobats have been on the receiving end of an NYPD crackdown. As no fan of Showtime!, I initially applauded the move, but the more I read about it, the less I’m sure it’s the way to go. Here’s how Matt Flegenheimer, soon to be off the transit beat, and J. David Goodman put it:
Cheered by tourists, tolerated by regulars, feared by those who frown upon kicks in the face, subway dancers have unwittingly found themselves a top priority for the New York Police Department — a curious collision of a Giuliani-era policing approach, a Bloomberg-age dance craze and a new administration that has cast the mostly school-age entertainers as fresh-face avatars of urban disorder.
Arrests of performers have more than quadrupled this year, to 203 through early this month, compared with 48 over the same period last year…The attention is part of a broader policing strategy in which officers, who often act on complaints from the public, place an emphasis on low-level offenses with a goal of rooting out more serious crime…
Once emblematic of urban disorder, the subways have been a focus of renewed efforts, drawing significant resources for what Deputy Inspector Edward O’Brien called “a cat-and-mouse game.” Teams of officers, dressed casually, follow tips from riders or transit personnel and fan out across cars. “They know we’re out there,” said Inspector O’Brien, who heads special operations for the Police Department’s transit bureau and who was on the train in plainclothes when other officers moved in to arrest Peppermint and Butterscotch. “They’re stepping up their game to a certain degree.”
The Times notes thats around 20 percent of subway dancers have outstanding warrants while others face charges of reckless endangerment or disorderly conduct. Even that seems on the excessive side of things. I’ve objected to the Showtime! routine on the grounds that they’re loud and disruptive with the potential for an errant foot to meet an unsuspecting head. They’re nothing though that probably can’t be solved by ejecting the kids from the system and giving them a warning or a summons.
Any charges simply seem to be rubbing it and unnecessary for any future records, but maybe I’m being too lenient. After all, the kids keep coming back, and enough people keep donating to make the whole thing worthwhile. So let me throw it open to you by revisiting a poll from earlier this year. What do you think of Showtime?
- Lock 'em up and throw away the key.
- A warning and ejecting them from the system is just fine.
- A $75 summons without charging them for a crime would do the trick.
- Reckless endangerment or disorderly conduct sound about right to me.