A 49-year-old man was in critical condition late Monday after being shot in the head by the police during a confrontation at a Brooklyn subway station between officers and a knife-wielding man who they believed had not paid his fare, officials said.

The man with the head wound was one of two bystanders and four people in total who were shot in the melee at the Sutter Avenue L station. Critics said the shooting raised questions about the Police Department’s use of lethal force in a tight, crowded space to enforce a minor, if persistent, offense.

City leaders, police officials and transit executives have made reducing crime in New York’s subway and buses a top priority. They have flooded the system with officers in a bid to improve safety and combat a perception in some quarters that the subway, especially, is dangerous.

As part of the push, officials have moved to crack down on fare evasion, which in 2022 cost the financially strapped Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the state agency that runs the transit system, nearly $700 million in lost revenue. Aggressive fare enforcement can keep weapons out of the system and stop criminals from committing serious offenses, officials say.

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“Let’s not forget why this started,” Janno Lieber, the authority’s chief executive, told reporters on Sunday. “It started because somebody wanted to come to the transit system with a weapon.”

But civil rights advocates said the confrontation was a reckless, dangerous and outsize response to the crime in question.

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