A pair of millennial lovebirds beat up a New York transit officer because they wasn’t convinced he was a “real” cop, according to police sources.
The drama unfolded April 12 in East Williamsburg at a hipster epicenter, the Morgan Avenue L train stop, where two plainclothes cops approached Alexander Telinde after he allegedly jumped a turnstile at around 11:40 pm, a law enforcement source said.
Telinde, 21, wasn’t convinced the officer was the real McCoy, so he began shouting, “You’re not real cops! Those are fake badges!” according to a law enforcement source.
He then grabbed one of the officer’s expandable batons and began beating him with it during the confrontation, police said.
Telinde’s girlfriend – 20-year-old Emily Weber – jumped into the fray, and began punching the officer in the face, authorities said.
The pair were finally brought under control and were charged with assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest and obstruction of government administration, police said.
Reached on his cell phone on Wednesday, Telinde – a Virginia Beach native and junior at the Culinary Institute of America in New Hyde Park – declined comment.
A family friend of the suspect shared an Instagram picture, snapped by a bystander, showing Telinde handcuffed and leaning against a station wall and Weber on her knees crying on the platform as two plainclothes cops stood over them.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BEJsHWtQp2G/?taken-by=stilotta
“Late night subway dramas,” bystander Sarah Tilotta wrote on her Instagram. “Shouldn’t have jumped that turnstile bro!”
Suspects frequently disobey transit cops because the officers are often in plainclothes.
“This happens more than you think,” a law enforcement source said. “We just had a female officer beaten up at Borough Hall (subway station) last week.”
Additional reporting by David K. Li