Trouble follows turnstyle swipe

January 20, 2007

By Matthew Lysiak
The Brooklyn Paper

If you swipe the wrong subway turnstile, you could get a $60 ticket — and lose your child.

A Bay Ridge mom returning from her first trip into Manhattan with her new baby received such a summons last Wednesday, but was also threatened with having her child taken from her custody — all because she swiped the wrong turnstile at Herald Square.

“I thought it was a prank,” said new mom Kris Belden-Adams, of an officer’s reaction when she innocently, yet wrongly, swiped at a handicapped-accessible turnstile.

“I was waiting for Ashton Kutcher to come out any minute and tell me I was on ‘Punk’d.’”

The day began when Beldon-Adams took her 6-month-old daughter into the city. New to New York, the Kansas native asked the token-booth clerk how to enter the subway system with her stroller.

“He told me to swipe my card, turn the turnstile, and then open the door,” she said.

Going to Manhattan was easy enough, but coming back proved to be a “nightmare.”

At Herald Square, Beldon-Adams noticed that the entrance door had a slot to insert her MetroCard, so she did that instead of using the turnstile.

But that slot is reserved for reduced-fare MetroCards.

After she opened the door and pushed her stroller through, Beldon-Adams was accosted by a man.

“The guy asked me what I was doing,” Beldon-Adams said. “I was in a rush — and now some guy is telling me to stop.”

“Some guy” turned out to be a plain-clothed transit officer who flashed his badge.

“I thought the badge looked fake, like something you buy at Toys ‘R’ Us,” Beldon-Adams said. “I told him I was in a rush.”

That’s when the officer, whose name appeared as Vessilio on the summons, told her that by “disrespecting authority,” she was risking losing her child.

“He told me he could call Child Protective Services on me,” Beldon-Adams said. “That was the point where I knew it wasn’t a joke.”

Beldon-Adams pleaded with the officer that her mistake had been innocent, but the cop didn’t care, she said.

New York City Transit would not comment for this story, but one transit source was skeptical.

“There had to be more to it than this lady says, because … most officers are reasonable people who would make a distinction between an honest mistake and someone trying to steal a free ride.”

Beldon-Adams disagreed about the “reasonable” part.

“It is absolutely horrifying to have any law situation with your child right there,” she said. “But when an authority figure threatens to actually take your child away from you, the feeling is unspeakable.”