A video out of Brownsville shows an NYPD officer writing a man up for spitting, then grabbing him by the collar, throwing him to the ground and handcuffing him. The footage has pushed a Brooklyn City Council member to call for erasing spitting from the city's litter law entirely, and has reignited scrutiny of how often minor quality-of-life tickets turn physical on New York City streets.
Police identified the man in the video as 21-year-old Abdoulaye Traore, according to Gothamist. Traore was charged with second-degree obstructing governmental administration and second-degree harassment, and he was released without bail at his first court appearance, the outlet reported. The arrest stemmed from what began as a routine ticket for spitting in public before the encounter escalated into a physical takedown.
A Councilmember Takes Aim at the Spitting Law
City Council member Chris Banks, who represents District 42 covering East New York, Starrett City, Brownsville, Canarsie, Remsen Village and East Flatbush, said he plans to propose removing spitting from the city's litter ordinance altogether. Banks discussed his proposal on PIX on Politics Daily, telling viewers he wants spitting taken off the books as a ticketable offense, as PIX11 reported. Gothamist reported that the mayoral administration would review the proposal.
The law Banks is targeting traces back further than this single arrest. Administrative Code section 16-118(1), which covers littering, sweep-out, throw-out and spitting, was amended by Local Law 131 of 2018, according to the NYC Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings. An earlier reform, Local Law 75, had already amended that same section to create a specific violation for spitting as part of the city's Criminal Justice Reform Act, a package the NYC Department of Sanitation describes as intended to build stronger, safer neighborhoods by reducing arrests and incarceration.
How a Ticket Becomes an Arrest
Most people who receive a criminal court summons — sometimes called a pink ticket — are not arrested or fingerprinted unless they fail to produce identification, according to New York Courts. That standard process is part of what makes the Brownsville video jarring: a routine summons situation turned into a physical arrest on camera, and it's drawn significant attention since surfacing, per the same Gothamist account.
The numbers around spitting enforcement are small compared to the broader universe of quality-of-life policing. NYPD officers issued 549 tickets for spitting during the last fiscal year, the station's report found, while the department issued more than 200,000 civil and criminal summonses overall for quality-of-life issues in that same period.
Dismissed Tickets and a Crime Drop Add Context
Of roughly 98,000 civil tickets NYPD officers issued last fiscal year, nearly half were later dismissed by hearing officers because they were defective, the same report noted — a detail that has fueled arguments from critics who say enforcement of minor offenses is inconsistent at best. An NYPD spokesperson, meanwhile, said major crime in the Brownsville area is down 14% year to date, a figure cited in response to questions about policing priorities in the neighborhood.
For now, the fate of Banks's proposal remains an open question. The councilmember has said he wants spitting tickets eliminated, but whether that push results in formal legislation — and whether it advances through the City Council — has not yet been determined. The administration said it would review the idea. The underlying law, and the question of how it gets enforced on the street, remain unresolved.
