#Cop who punched, dragged homeless man off train won’t be punished: Dermot Shea

The NYPD cop who was captured on video punching a homeless man and dragging him off a subway car will not face discipline, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said Tuesday.

“I would agree with the mayor, the mayor, it’s troublesome the video. Anytime an incident results in non-compliance or force being used and it doesn’t look good,” Shea said, adding that the published video was “spliced.”

“My analysis of the entirety of it whereas it goes on for nearly 30 minutes and officers kicked, etc., I don’t see any change in duty status,” Shea said, referring to the first steps in the department’s disciplinary process.

“Any use of force, and this incident certainly falls within that, is reviewed,” he added.

The unedited 39-minute video reviewed by The Post from the May 25 incident shows Joseph Troiano swatting an officer’s hand away and yanking his own arm out of the cop’s grasp — but it does not show any kick or shove by the distraught man before the officer pummels him with pair of haymakers.

The violent encounter unfolded when cops approached the 30-year-old straphanger, Troiano, at the East 51st Street-Lexington Avenue station, just after midnight for “occupying more than one seat on the train.”

Shea said Tuesday that Troiano left the first train without incident but escalated when he jumped into another subway car and refused to leave, which is captured in the body camera footage.

“You can’t arrest for not getting off the train,” Troiano can be heard saying in the video, refusing to leave the second subway car.

The footage captures Officer Adonis Long then trying to remove Troiano, who then swats the cop’s hand away, saying “Don’t touch me! Get off of me!”

After trying again, Long then punches the man in the face twice, the video shows.

NYPD Officer Shimul Saha claimed in a criminal complaint that when cops tried to pull the man off the train he began flailing his arms and kicking his legs, making it difficult to place him in handcuffs,” and that Troiano had yelled, “I am not getting off the f–king train.’”

Saha says in the criminal complaint he saw Troiano “shove” Long and that he “observed the two grappling on the floor as Officer Long and I attempted to place handcuffs on the defendant.”

Troiano is seen in the video flailing his legs during the arrest but after being punched, dragged off the train, pepper-sprayed, cuffed and placed face down on the ground while begging “please.”

One of the officers then sits Troiano up, taps him on his shoulder, saying “okay, now relax,” as the man starts to calm down, according to the video.

Troiano was initially charged with resisting arrest and obstruction of governmental administration but the Manhattan DA upgraded his charges to assault two after it was reported one of the cops was injured.

But Saha changed his story multiple times to an assistant DA as to the extent of Long’s injuries, according to court documents.

“[Arresting Officer] initially described [Long’s] injury to ADA as broken arm, then broken hand, then broken finger, then broken wrist – suggested inquiry into witness’s ability to describe exact bodyparts,” the court papers read.

The assault and obstruction charges were later dismissed after Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance’s Office reviewed the video.

The resisting arrest charge is still pending, according to court records.

Obstructing a seat is a $50 fine, per MTA’s code.

Mayor Bill de Blasio previously told reporters he couldn’t release info about the case since the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office was involved, but after being pressed Tuesday Hizzoner said he “was troubled by everything I saw on that video on all sides.”

The Legal Aid Society, which is repping Troiano, decried the move by the city’s top cop, but said it wasn’t “surprising.”

“NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea’s refusal to discipline the officers who brutally assaulted our client should alarm all New Yorkers,” said Edda Ness, a staff attorney with Legal Aid.

“But it’s not surprising, as Shea is the same Commissioner who commended his own officers for exercising ‘incredible restraint’ during the George Floyd demonstration despite a tidal wave of first hand accounts, social media posts, videos, and news reports showing the exact opposite.”