A New York couple was enjoying an innocent date night when authorities forcibly removed them from the subway in what has now been confirmed as a case of mistaken identity.
In a video filmed by passenger Neely Grobani, who then posted it on Twitter, the unidentified duo was seen pleading with police officers as they were dragged out of the train car.
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“We all wondered what was going on as about 15 cops stood on one side the closed doors and we all sat on the other,” Grobani wrote in the accompanying tweet. “As soon as the doors opened, the cops rushed in and grabbed the young man I was sitting across from. They grabbed his girlfriend as soon as she tried to follow him to figure out what was going on.”
According to the NY Post, authorities received a 911 call of a man with a gun. Responding officers swarmed the Brooklyn subway believing they’d found someone who matched his description.
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— Neely Grobani (@Neelstarr) February 24, 2020
“Get off of me! Get the f–k off of me!” the distraught woman can be heard screaming, at one point inquiring as to why they were bothering her date.
“It became really clear that whatever they were looking for was not on this couple,” the witness recalled while speaking to PIX11. “It was stressful and I wasn’t sure what I could do in that situation — and the one thing I could do was film it, so I did.”
She also pointed out that the man and woman were actually taking a nap together in their seats before the NYPD stormed the train car, and woke them up with no context.
“The fact that they were looking for something and there were people on the train, they could’ve asked: ‘Did anyone see something?’ They didn’t engage at all. It was upsetting and concerning to me,” Grobani said.