Police opened fire on a subway platform in Brooklyn during a confrontation with an alleged fare-beater, striking the man cops said was armed with a knife, two straphangers caught in the fray, and one of the firing officers, NYPD officials said Sunday.
One of those two passengers hit by the cops’ bullets, a 49-year-old man, was hospitalized in critical condition after he was hit struck in the head, according to the NYPD.
The two officers who opened fire were assigned to patrol the Sutter Avenue subway stop in the 73rd precinct when they spotted a man skip the station turnstile and walk through an open gate toward the train platform, Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey explained at an evening press conference from Brookdale Hospital.
Trust Hollywood to get it wrong. In the military the term strap hangars can be derogatory, but it’s not any better for the person being held on to if it’s used this way. It has to do with patronage systems and people not making it on their own merit. Rather than constantly trying to cull the hangars, the people with the straps are enabling them. “There goes Colonel Good Idea Fairy and his straphangers.”
Alternatively in the Airborne community it means someone who isn’t scheduled to jump but shows up anyways, hoping there’s an extra parachute. This isn’t derogatory because airborne soldiers have to jump every so often to maintain their status and pay, and life happens so there’s no telling why they’re in need of a jump. “We have five extra parachutes for straphangers.”