A recent gay sex sting by police at New York City’s Penn Station has resulted in the arrest and detainment of nearly 200 individuals since June, The Gothamist reported on Wednesday. One arrestee alleged that police called him a homophobic slur, an attorney has said the arrests may be “flawed,” and two gay government officials have accused authorities of conducting an “alarming” and “deceitful” operation targeting gay men.

The Amtrak Police Department placed undercover officers in a transit station restroom, which appears as a popular sex location on cruising apps like Sniffies, which help men arrange public sex encounters. The officers then hid in toilet stalls or pretended to use the urinals to watch for sexual activity.

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Only 12 people were arrested for public lewdness in the restroom before June, but since Pride Month, nearly 200 arrests have occurred there. Amtrak police reportedly handed 20 of the arrestees over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) without any legal charges. Though state and city laws ban New York police from giving detainees to ICE, Amtrak is allowed to do so since it operates as a federal agency.

While body camera footage showed officers arresting two men groping each other at a urinal, out gay New York City Councilman Erik Bottcher (co-chair of the council’s LGBTQ+ caucus) wrote in a Thursday letter to Amtrak’s president that one arrestee — a 31-year-old healthcare worker named David — was arrested while “simply trying to use the bathroom while wearing a Pride wristband.”

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“He described being watched, approached at a urinal, and suddenly told he was under arrest,” Bottcher wrote. “Once detained, he overheard officers refer to him and others as ‘f*g pervs’ and when he asked for water, was mocked with the response, ‘Sure, you want a steak too?’ The charge against him was eventually dropped, but the experience left him traumatized.”

Bottcher also said Amtrak police handed a Mexican man, who was in asylum proceedings and had a U.S. citizen spouse, directly to an ICE detainment facility. He was held there for a month before a judge ordered his release.

“These reports reveal deeply alarming violations of civil rights, due process, and protections against discriminatory policing,” Bottcher wrote, adding that a similar 2022 sting by Port Authority police was abandoned after a lawsuit revealed “years of false arrests and unlawful targeting based on perceived sexuality.”

Bottcher said he was “greatly disturbed” by the surge of arrests, adding, “This is unacceptable.” He and gay state Sen. Brad Hoylman (D) have demanded that Amtrak provide explanations of the arrests. Hoylman called the ongoing sting “deceitful” in a Wednesday post on X.

As co-chairs of the @NYCCouncil LGBTQ+ Caucus we are greatly disturbed by the surge of arrests by Amtrak police in a men’s restroom at Penn Station targeting LGBTQ New Yorkers and even handing people directly to ICE without charges. This is unacceptable. pic.twitter.com/Kn5JH8hsA0

— Erik Bottcher (@ebottcher) September 25, 2025

One arrestee, an off-duty NYPD sergeant, was charged with public exposure, The New York Post reported, though his case was dismissed on Tuesday.

“It’s definitely a cause for concern,” said Jennvine Wong, a supervising attorney at the Cop Accountability Project for the Legal Aid Society One. She said the sudden rise in arrests and lack of prosecutions suggest that “the enforcement and cause for arrests may be flawed,” Gothamist reported.

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