NEW YORK — Musicians rallied around a fellow subway performer whose arrest in a busy station came after a confrontation over whether he needed a permit and was captured on video as straphangers jeered police.
The New York Police Department said it's looking into the arrest of Andrew Kalleen.
Kalleen was performing Friday at the G train stop in Brooklyn's hipster Williamsburg neighborhood, home to trendy boutiques and cafes patronized by ultrahip residents and tourists who flock there to experience Brooklyn life. A police officer told Kalleen he had to leave the station because he needed a permit to play there.
"I'm not going to argue with you," the officer says calmly in the video.
Kalleen, also speaking evenly, refuses to leave and tells the officer he has a right to be there performing, then directs him to the section in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's rules of conduct that says artistic performances and solicitations of donations are allowed.
The flustered officer reads the section aloud, as the watching straphangers clap, but then decides to eject Kalleen from the station.
The MTA does not issue permits, and the rules the officer read aloud are accurate. But the MTA rules differ from state law, which says an entertainer can be arrested for loitering in a transportation facility unless he was authorized to be there.
"Get your stuff. You're leaving," the officer says.
