A New York state assemblywoman was accosted and called a “bitch” and a “whore” by a pack of unruly “Statue of Liberty ferry” ticket salesmen — but police who witnessed the harassment ignored her pleas for help, claiming the mayor told them not to intervene.
Chinatown Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, 35, says that the red-vested ticket-hockers — who sell boat rides past Lady Liberty masqueraded as trips to Liberty Island itself — were blocking the Battery Park exit of the Bowling Green 4/5 station when she politely asked them to move.
“I was like, ‘Can you guys not block the way?’ He’s like ‘F–k you.’ He called me a ‘whore,’ he called me a ‘bitch,’” the lawmaker told The Post.
But when Niou tried to report the treatment to a pair of cops standing “literally like three steps away,” they told her “the city doesn’t care” and claimed that Mayor Bill de Blasio “told them not to do anything.”
“I said, ‘I care. I’m a state assemblywoman,’” Niou responded, fuming to The Post that “when you’re going to see all the sites, including the Statue of Liberty you’re not supposed to be called a whore. The cop was like literally watching it happen.”
But the do-nothing police officers’ non-response only emboldened ticket sellers.
“I told you they weren’t going to do anything. Are you ashamed?” one of them crowed, before flashing a Police Benevolent Association card and bragging “My mom’s a cop,” according to Niou.
She tweeted about the incident, garnering a response from 1st Precinct Commanding Officer Capt. Angel Figueroa Jr.
“He was very explicit that the officers’ response was inappropriate, that they are doing things about this, and they do care,” Niou said.
The pair have scheduled a sit-down to discuss the larger issue of aggressive ticket sellers, she said.
The pass-peddlers claim to sell “ferry” tickets to the Statue of Liberty, but their boats only whiz by it in the harbor. Only one city contractor actually offers rides to the Island, and those tickets are sold from a kiosk within Battery Park.
A 2016 law requires ticket sellers to be licensed, and at least four have been arrested so far this year.
The incident is also the latest example of cops simply choosing to not do their jobs, then blaming de Blasio.
The force virtually stopped working for several weeks in 2014 and 2015 after the assassination of two uniformed police officers by a mentally unstable out-of-towner — because cops claimed the killing was somehow the mayor’s fault.
The NYPD and mayor’s office did not return requests for comment.
Source: Read Full Article