While the NYPD and MTA Police are entrusted with making sure subway riders pay their fare, a squad of security officers known as the Evasion and Graffiti Lawlessness Eradication (EAGLE) team handles that responsibility on the MTA’s bus lines.

The NYPD and MTA Police officers are armed and wear bulletproof vests; EAGLE team members are unarmed. And while the officers in the subways have largely handled fare evasion enforcement with few violent incidents, recent social media videos have shown EAGLE team members going too far in their enforcement duties on bus lines.

In one incident, a Brooklyn school administrator named Kyle Taylor said he was roughly assaulted by EAGLE members who accused him of skipping the fare after boarding a B14 bus earlier this month. The video circulated of the incident did not show what transpired on board the bus that triggered the response by EAGLE agents, who are shown dragging Taylor off the bus and pinning him against a nearby telephone pole. He wound up in the hospital for his injuries.

Last week, the MTA moved to suspend the four EAGLE agents involved in the assault. Taylor’s attorney also vowed to sue the authority. It later halted all EAGLE activities until further notice pending ongoing investigations.

MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber insisted that the authority isn’t giving up on bus fare enforcement, noting that it loses upwards of $300 million a year from people who avoid paying their $3 per ride. The problem is especially bad in the bus system, where the MTA estimates that nearly half of all who use the buses aren’t paying when they board.

But the Progressive Caucus of the City Council issued its own statement Tuesday that the EAGLE teams should be completely disbanded because of the violent interactions that have happened between agents and riders, particularly in low-income areas where they say there is disproportionately high levels of enforcement.

The Caucus did not address the $300 million lost in fare evasion every year, but did suggest it was time for the city and MTA to make all buses free, as Mayor Zohran Mamdani campaigned on during his successful election in 2025.

It would cost the city an estimated $750 million just to set up a city-run bus system from the MTA — $750 million the city does not have, given that the Mamdani administration faces billions of dollars in deficits in future budgets.

There is simply zero excuse for anyone to avoid paying the fare on the buses and subways, especially when there are half-priced transit rides available to most New Yorkers via the Fair Fares program. The city doesn’t have the money to afford its own bus system; the MTA doesn’t have the luxury of ignoring fare evasion; and New Yorkers who do pay the fare (and the assorted taxes and fees supporting the MTA) are tired of having to pay more because of fare evaders who choose to cheat the system.

The MTA must not give up on EAGLE, but it must take steps to ensure that its security agents are better trained and more responsible in enforcing the law and de-escalating situations. If it cannot do that, then the MTA should lean on its police partners to make sure the job is done right, with all riders’ rights respected.

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