‘Devastated’ Widow Says M.T.A. Workers Shared Photos of Slain Husband

The morning after her husband was shot and killed while trying to break up a fight on the subway, Jakeba Dockery was sitting at home in Brooklyn, still in shock, when she received a text from a family friend.

Did she know that crime scene photos of her husband had been posted online?

The photos showed Ms. Dockery’s husband, Richard Henderson, lying on the floor of a No. 3 train in a pool of his own blood. They were taken on Jan. 14, after Mr. Henderson was shot in the back and neck, as he waited for emergency medical workers to arrive.

The photos were making the rounds on social media and being circulated through text messages when a longtime neighbor of Mr. Henderson’s received them from his stepfather, who works for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and who did not realize the two men were friends. That neighbor then texted Ms. Dockery to tell her the photos were being shared widely.

Around the same time, Ms. Dockery’s son and daughter opened Instagram and saw the photos of their father.

“I was hurt, just devastated,” Ms. Dockery said in an interview. “Seeing that picture confirmed he’s never coming home again.”

The photos were taken and shared by M.T.A. employees, Ms. Dockery and her lawyers said in a notice of claim they filed against the authority, the City of New York, and New York City Transit, the M.T.A. subsidiary that operates the subway. The notice is the first step in filing a lawsuit against a city agency.