A Brooklyn man was sentenced to 25 years in prison Wednesday for shooting a police officer tried to stop him from boarding an MTA bus without paying the fare, the Brooklyn district attorney’s office said.
In February, Rashun Robinson, 29, was caught getting on the back of the B46 bus near Empire Boulevard and Utica Avenue. The two officers, James Li and Randy Chow, ordered him to get off but instead he ran and started firing, Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson said in a statement.
Police Commissioner Bill Bratton has continually championed the Broken Windows Theory, which aggressively targets “quality of life” crimes, such as fare-beating.
Significant attention was paid to suchcrimes in the 1990s when Bratton first served as the city’s commissioner. Bratton has credited focusing on the subway system as a turnaround point for cleaning up the city in general.
At about 5 p.m. on Feb. 26, Officers Li and Chow told Robinson to get off the bus. Instead, Robinson immediately ran across Empire Boulevard and started firing, Thompson said. Li, who had graduated from the academy only two months before, was struck in the leg and groin.
Li suffered permanent nerve damage to his leg and has to walk with a cane, Thompson said.
Robinson was arrested a short while later in the stairwell of a nearby building with a .45 caliber pistol in his hand, Thompson said. Three .45 caliber shell casings were recovered, he said.
Robinson pleaded guilty on July 25 to aggravated assault of a police officer, Thompson said.
