The Massive Apple subway system has been wracked by 5 straight days of violence amid a spike in transit crime — regardless of the NYPD, Nationwide Guard and even the crime-crusading Guardian Angels on patrol.
The horrifying Dec. 22 torching demise of a New Jersey straphanger on a Brooklyn F prepare was solely the start of the newest underground crime spree, which has seen 5 folks stabbed or slashed and a 45-year-old straphanger thrown below a Manhattan subway prepare since Sunday.
For some metropolis politicians, it’s reached the breaking level.
“New Yorkers don’t really feel secure on our subways, regardless of the nonsense that Gov. [Kathy] Hochul is spouting,” metropolis Councilwoman Joanna Ariola (R-Queens) mentioned Thursday. “We have to prioritize public security over empty political rhetoric, particularly now that Albany is forcing extra folks into public transportation due to their newest congestion pricing tax.
“Extra Guardsmen is nice for optics, however what we actually have to do is untie the arms of the NYPD and allow them to begin doing their jobs once more,” Ariola mentioned.
Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens) additionally faulted lawmakers in Albany — and at Metropolis Corridor.
“On daily basis, we face stabbings, shoves onto tracks, or worse, being burned alive. However Kathy Hochul says she’s ‘making our subways safer,’ and that ‘crime is down,’” he mentioned. “New Yorkers are bored with being gaslit— and much more bored with being assaulted.
“We’d like an overhaul of metropolis & state management. They don’t care about you!”
Hochul final yr ordered greater than 1,000 Nationwide Guard troops into the transit system in response to rising issues over subway security, whereas Mayor Eric Adams “surged” 1,000 NYPD cops into the underground as properly, a rep for the mayor mentioned final week.
However the violence has solely elevated, beginning with the stomach-turning arson demise of 57-year-old Debrina Kawam of Toms River on the Stillwell Avenue-Coney Island station, allegedly by unlawful migrant Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, who’s now being held on first-degree homicide prices.
In the latest assault, an MTA employee within the Bronx was stabbed early Thursday morning whereas heading to work on the Pelham Parkway station — together with his assailant nonetheless on the free.
4 different straphangers have been slashed in consecutive days since Sunday — a 52-year-old man knifed within the arm on the Myrtle-Wyckoff L prepare station; a 48-year-old man slashed within the neck on the West fiftieth Road and Eighth Avenue station in Manhattan; and two others on New 12 months’s Day.
In these incidents, a 30-year-old man was lower within the arm after getting right into a dispute with one other straphanger on the one hundred and tenth Road-Cathedral Parkway station, and a 31-year-old man was stabbed within the again on the 14th Road station simply quarter-hour later.
However the week’s most stunning transit terror got here on Tuesday, when music programmer Joseph Lynskey, 45, was pushed into the trail of a Manhattan 1 prepare — miraculously escaping together with his life.
The NYPD arrested Kamel Hawkins, 23, simply hours later close to Columbus Circle and charged him with tried homicide and assault within the terrifying caught-on-video assault.
Total, police stats present that within the 28 days main as much as Sunday, there have been 48 felony assaults within the metropolis transit system, making for a 40% bump over the identical interval in 2023.
The elevated violence prompted the Guardian Angels, town’s vigilante watchdog group, to announce that it’ll resume patrols within the subways for the primary time since 2020.
The Angels, based in 1979 by previous mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa, mentioned it should ship three-member crews into troubled stations across the clock to root out crime.
However up to now nothing has eased the issues amongst train-riding New Yorkers.
“It is a easy cause-and-effect state of affairs that solely requires frequent sense to be correctly addressed,” Stated metropolis Councilwoman Inna Vernikov (R-Brooklyn). “Sadly there isn’t a abundance of frequent sense in our authorities proper now.
“The violence isn’t going to cease till the powers that be start to grasp sample recognition and legislate accordingly,” she mentioned. “And the fact is that these crimes are being perpetrated both by unlawful migrants or mentally disturbed people with priors.”
Added Councilman Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island), “Possibly all the general public security kabuki theater received’t be essential if we simply return to arresting and prosecuting dangerous guys.”
Hochul’s workplace and officers at Metropolis Corridor didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
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