The first ever gun-detector scanner on a city subway is now active inside Manhattan’s Fulton Center Subway Station.
The station is among several that will receive the much criticized technology over the next month as part of a pilot program. The system will use artificial intelligence to find riders carrying any metal object resembling a firearm, officials said at an unveiling during the Friday evening rush hour.
“Would I rather that we don’t have to be scanned? Yes,” Mayor Eric Adams said during a press conference at the station. “But if you would speak to the average subway rider, they would state they don’t want guns on their system.”
The scanner’s installation is the result of a long-term effort by Adams to install the same gun detection technology in subways that’s seen in some of the city’s arenas and stadiums.
The prospect of installing these scanners has drawn biting criticism from transit advocates who say they’ll clog up commutes — and civil rights organizations who say the technology is unreliable and unconstitutional. The New York Civil Liberties Union and Legal Aid Society announced plans to file a joint lawsuit against Adams and MTA CEO and Chair Janno Lieber on Friday.
NYCLU senior staff attorney Daniel Lambright called the new scanners “a violation” of riders’ Fourth Amendment rights.
“Slowing down the subway with error-prone scanners and flooding our subways with cops is mere security theater that turns every New Yorker into a suspect and takes resources away from supportive services that will help keep crime at low rates like more housing, mental health, and employment services,” he said in a statement on Friday.
The MTA did not immediately reply to requests for comment on the lawsuit.
NYPD Deputy Commissioner Michael Gerber told reporters that he’s confident the scanners are “completely lawful.”
Adams said that the scanners will work in tandem with other efforts – such as bag checks – to stop “mass casualty incidents” in subways. He said that officers will scan riders at random.
Commuters are entitled to refuse going through the scanner – although it will mean having to leave the station.