https://www.them.us/story/nyc-penn-station-sniffies-arrests

20 people were reportedly arrested in a single day this month.

By Samantha Riedel

September 24, 2025

Bloomberg/Getty Images

Sign up for The Agenda, Them’s news and politics newsletter, delivered Thursdays.

Since June, Amtrak Police officers have arrested dozens of people for alleged “public lewdness” at New York City’s Penn Station, a sting operation that sent at least one person to an ICE detention facility — and which one university professor says was conducted, in part, through popular cruising apps like Sniffies.

The most important LGBTQ+ news and politics stories delivered straight to your inbox

SIGN UP

By signing up, you agree to our user agreement (including class action waiver and arbitration provisions), and acknowledge our privacy policy.

As reported by NYC news outlet The City on Wednesday, Amtrak Police arrested 23 people for public lewdness in June — LGBTQ+ Pride Month — after making only eight such arrests in the five months prior. “Lewdness” arrest numbers have remained high since then, according to the NYC-based Legal Aid Society, which told The City that 20 people were arrested for lewdness at Penn Station in a single day in September.

One of the people arrested in June was David, a 31-year-old gay man and healthcare worker who said he was arrested while trying to use a Penn Station urinal on his way home from visiting a friend. He was wearing a rainbow bracelet. David told The City that he was taken to a cell inside the station and handcuffed to a wall, at which point he heard one officer tell others “we got three more fag pervs.” The lewdness charge against him was eventually dropped, but David said he was “traumatized” by the experience.

Immigration attorney Danney Salvatierra also told The City that one of her clients, an asylum seeker from Mexico, was arrested by Amtrak Police while using the bathroom at Penn in July and immediately handed off to ICE agents. Salvatierra said the arrest documents did not contain a charge against her client, who spent over a month in a detention facility before being released by a judge.

Last week, City University of New York (CUNY) law professor Jared Trujillo posted a TikTok video warning others about sting operations in Penn Station bathrooms. Trujillo claims that police have been using Sniffies to lure potential cruisers to a bathroom near a police booth, then arrest them. The arrests come during a marked increase in visibility for Sniffies through print media like The New Yorker and New York Magazine, though Trujillo pointed out that the platform wasn’t the only way police have targeted travelers.

@profjaredtrujillo

Be safe!! Amtrak officers are using Sniffies and otherwise approaching people in the men’s Amtrak bathroom at Penn Statuon and charging them with lewdness #sniffies #NYC #civilrightawyer #amtrak #pennstation

♬ original sound – Prof. Jared Trujillo

“There are other instances where officers will approach someone who’s at a urinal, the officer will touch himself or will just peer at the person, and if the person — who is there just trying to pee — responds in any way, that person is then arrested or at least charged with lewdness,” Trujillo said in his video. (In his comments to The City, David said he felt “watched” by a nearby man shortly before his arrest.) Trujillo further noted that such stings closely resemble tactics used in the past decade by Port Authority police, who settled a class action lawsuit over similar arrests in 2022, promising to end plainclothes bathroom patrols and step up sensitivity training.

“Police have long weaponized constitutionally dubious tactics to target men they perceive as gay. Officers sometimes expose or touch themselves, or leer at men, only to arrest the man — even when he has done nothing wrong,” Trujillo told Them in a statement Wednesday. “These arrests are about padding numbers, not public safety. They waste resources and inflict trauma, and the charges can carry devastating immigration and employment consequences. The Port Authority police engaged in the same conduct until Legal Aid sued and forced a settlement in 2022.”

Trujillo urged LGBTQ+ people to exercise caution when dealing with the police to reduce the chance of harm. “If you are arrested, invoke your right to remain silent and ask for an attorney,” he told Them. “Do not consent to police searching your phone.”

The arrests come during a marked increase in visibility for Sniffies through print media like The New Yorker and New York Magazine.

Get the best of what’s queer. Sign up for Them’s weekly newsletter here.

Samantha Riedel is a writer and editor whose work on transgender culture and politics has previously appeared in VICE, Bitch Magazine, and The Establishment. She lives in Massachusetts, where she is presently at work on her first manuscript. … Read More