A man was arrested, got out of jail for free, and was given a ticket to California

Question

Elon Musk posted on X claiming that an immigrant beat up police officers in Times Square, got out of jail for free, and was given free tickets to California. Is this true? Many responses were saying a community note was attached to his post claiming it was false, but it is no longer there. Many believe he paid for it to be removed.

Answer 1

This is technically true but incredibly simplified. There were a group of migrant men who attacked NYPD officers when they were trying to apprehend one and they were all arrested but released without bail. The misleading part is that they were just "given free tickets." They gave fake names to a Church-affiliated nonprofit group that gives free rides out of the city to migrants. One of the suspects was on supervised release so the attack wasn’t completely without consequence, he just violated his court order. I think it's a misleading in the way Elon worded it, especially because Biden had nothing to do with it.

https://nypost.com/2024/02/01/metro/police-believe-4-of-the-migrants-arrested-in-nyc-cop-beatdown-fled-to-california/

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/elon-musk-is-not-happy-about-the-attackers-release-after-assault-on-nypd-officers-in-times-square-101709972606894.html