Police Arrest Woman For Selling Churros in Subway Station

This is so heartbreaking.

A woman has been arrested for selling churro's inside of a New York subway station.

I came across this video on Twitter with the caption: "Tonight as I was leaving Broadway Junction, I saw three or four police officers (one of them was either a plainclothes cop or someone who worked at the station) gathered around a crying woman and her churro cart. Apparently, it's illegal to sell food inside train stations. 1/? She kept trying to speak to one of the cops in Spanish, but the plainclothes cop kept rolling his eyes and saying things like, "Are you done?" and "I know you can speak English." Eventually, they cuffed her and unceremoniously dragged her and her cart away. 3/?"

In the first video above, the police are speaking to the woman and in the second video, you see them arrest her.

CBS reported:

It’s not clear what happened before the video was shot. The officers’ actions are now generating huge backlash.

“You know, I think it’s ridiculous. She’s not harming anyone. She’s just selling them. You know, everybody comes, they take the train, there’s people sometimes that skip breakfast or whatever, wanted a little snack, they buy it off her and that’s it. Just an honest living. An honest living,” one woman said.

City Councilman Stephen Levin tweeted in part, “Why is a woman selling churros getting cuffed? Is this seriously affecting anyone’s ‘quality of life?'”

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams tweeted, “There was a doorway right there, and a woman selling churros who could’ve been persuaded to just leave [without] a fine or arrest.”

But not everyone feels the officers were in the wrong.

“Come on, you gotta leave sooner or later. You’re violating the law like that,” one man said.

In response, the NYPD released a statement explaining that the woman is an unlicensed vendor who was told that she would be issued a summons and her property would be taken away if she didn’t comply.

The NYPD said,“This individual has been issued 10 summonses in the last five months for unlicensed vending at the same station. The Command has received numerous complaints regarding unlicensed vendors at Broadway Junction due to health concerns and individuals interfering with pedestrian flow.”

Police said the woman refused to cooperate and was briefly handcuffed before being released. They said her property was vouchered as evidence and the woman was released within minutes.

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