A group of teens are suspected of stealing a security camera monitor from a downtown C train — as the train was in the midst of the evening commute on Tuesday.
Sources tell the Daily News the train thievery took place around 6 p.m. in Manhattan near the 86th St. station of the B and C.
That’s when a passenger alerted the conductor about what a source described as “unruly youths” aboard the train’s rear car.
Upon further investigation, the conductor reported to NYC Transit’s Rail Control Center that the model-R211 train car’s onboard surveillance camera monitor in the rear control cab had been unbolted and removed from the train car.
A photograph from the train, obtained by the Daily News, shows uncoupled wires splayed out over the subway’s controls.
Sources said rail controllers instructed the conductor to discharge all passengers from the train, take it out of service and bring it to Pitkin Yard in East New York.
Manhattan downtown B and C trains were rerouted onto express tracks between 125th St. and 72nd St. during the incident for roughly 10 minutes.
An NYPD spokesperson said police were investigating the incident as a case or petit larceny. As of Wednesday evening, no arrests had been made.
The stolen subway monitor screen is the latest in a slew of transit trespasses — but rare, in that it took place on an in-service train.
Vandals stole the control stick out of an R train in December while it was parked underground in southern Brooklyn, a month after an unknown thief absconded with two-way radios from a specialized work train parked in the Coney Island Yard.
In February 2025, a 15-year-old boy was arrested after he came to school with a backpack full of stolen MTA gear, including walkie-talkies and train keys.
The theft of train parts and transit gear is suspected to be part of a broader trend of joyrides by young train enthusiasts that has swept the system in the past year.
Last month, young rail fans were suspected in a twin incidents that saw a pair of subways moved two stations in the wrong direction along the Queens Blvd. Line.
In March, a group of teens were suspected of breaking into a J train and promptly getting it stuck in a switch track, leading to more than an hour of service delays in lower Manhattan.