Police said the 36-year-old involved in Thursday's shooting on board an A train walked through the emergency exit at the Nostrand Avenue station in Brooklyn on Thursday.

“He did not pay his fare,” NYPD Chief of Department Jefferey Maddrey said.

Officers said the man brought a gun and the knife he was stabbed with into the subway system as he evaded paying his fare.

“We are seeing a small group of people, a small group of individuals, that we are catching during these fare evasions that are recidivist, that have warrants, that have guns, that have knives,” Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry said.

At a news conference Friday afternoon, NYPD officials said things like fare evasion can lead to bigger issues.

“Oftentimes, we see people enter into the subway station looking to cause harm, and they never pay the fare,” Maddrey said.

NY1 was with the NYPD for fare enforcement operations at the Hunts Point station in the Bronx the day Robinson was shot.

Police made an arrest and issued summons for fare beaters, which can be a $50 to $100 fine for skipping out on a $2.90 fare.

“Usually, it starts with a summons. If there is an issue with a warrant or if they have probable cause for another case, or they are a transit offender, they will have to be arrested and processed back at our district,” NYPD Captain Alexander Shopiro said.

“This sounds like the same tired rhetoric that was used to justify stop-and-frisk back in the day,” Donna Lieberman, director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said.

Lierberman pointed to NYPD data spanning from October 2017 to June 2019. It showed Black and Latino people account for nearly 90% of fare-related arrests. The data also showed they account for 70% of summonses.

“We have to look for social services, medical care, housing in order to make New York better and safer,” Lieberman said.

NYPD data shows so far this year, arrests are up roughly 68% and Transit Adjudication Bureau (TAB) summonses are roughly the same.