A group of reckless subway surfers risked their lives crossing the Williamsburg Bridge on Friday as the NYPD and MTA tried to curb a deadly social media trend.
On Friday, seven people dressed in black were seen riding atop a subway car as it entered the bridge heading toward Marcy Street, according to video obtained by the newspaper.
“As I sit down to work and mind my own business, I see outside my window people surfing the internet on the subway. That’s what happens all the time,” Brooklyn shared the footage. residents told the Post.
The video shows a daredevil standing as a train, believed to be the J, M, or Z, speeds toward a stop in Brooklyn. Several other people can be seen crouching or lying face down under the bridge.
“It was pretty shocking when I first saw it out in the open on the bridge. I remember someone dying a few months ago doing something like this,” said an eyewitness.
“If you see someone falling, you would be surprised, especially when they are trying to cross a bridge,” they added.
Friday’s stunt is the latest incident in this deadly game, and comes despite countless people being killed or injured, including many teenagers and teenagers. It continues to fascinate daredevils in the media.
“At this point, I’ve seen it so many times that it’s not all that alarming, but it’s obviously very dangerous. To see so many people doing it at once today is also It was weird. Why would they want to do that?” asked the person behind the video.
Police told the Post that no charges had been filed regarding the Daredevil group.
It was not immediately clear whether any of the seven people seen in the video were injured in the stunt.
The incident comes as the NYPD and MTA continue efforts to combat this reckless activity, including through subway station announcements urging people not to participate in dangerous activities by New York City students.
According to MTA data, subway surfing typically takes place on warm-weather afternoons when school is out, making it an essentially dangerous after-school activity for many of New York’s young residents.
With many young people participating in the worrying trend sharing videos of themselves online, the MTA has asked social media companies to reduce access to these videos.
Since last spring, more than 3,000 videos and photos of subway surfing have been removed from the internet. officials said.
A number of subway surfing incidents have already been recorded in 2024, including one involving a 10-year-old boy on top of a subway car in Queens earlier this month.
In late January, a middle-aged man started “going crazy” on a Brooklyn subway train, then tried to get into the outside of the car and jumped to his death, police and transit officials at the station said at the time.
Also in January, 14-year-old subway surfer Aram Reyes died after being thrown from a southbound F train approaching the Avenue N stop.
Jaben Fraser and Brian Crespo, 14, and Zachary Nazario, 15, all died last year while subway surfing.
Officials say a total of five people died from subway surfing last year, compared to just five from 2018 to 2022.
From January to June 2023, more than 450 incidents of subway surfing were recorded by MTA employees.
