New York City Mayor Eric Adams says that he will add more police presence in subway stations and return bag checks and checking backpacks after a 13 percent crime spike.
Recent criminal activity on the trains making headlines include a cellist who was bludgeoned over the head by a stranger wielding a water bottle as he performed, as well as a shooting that killed one and injured five others.
‘We know people feel unsafe,’ Adams, himself a former transit police officer, admitted.
The mayor said that he will be bringing back methods that have been previously used in times of great suspicion.
‘We are reinstituting bag checks. There are several things we are reinstituting in the system,’ Adams added, with the NYPD reportedly searching bags for weapons like knives, box cutters, clubs and guns.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams says that he will add more police presence in subway stations and return bag checks and checking backpacks after a 13 per cent crime spike
Those protocols were originally brought to the MTA after the London bombings in 2005.
Adams, a Democrat, is partnering with New York Governor and fellow liberal Kathy Hochul, who says she’s sending in state authorities to help deal with the problem after the pair met with MTA officials last week, according to NBC New York.
‘Governor Hochul has made historic commitments to make our subways safer, from security cameras to mental health personnel, and tomorrow she will unveil new legislation to protect riders, new state personnel to assist NYPD with bag checks, and other new measures to keep New Yorkers safe,’ a spokesperson for Adams said.
Hochul plans to reveal her own plans to protect subway riders on Wednesday, which should increase funding for police overtime, as well as mental health outreach.
She’s also planning to introduce legislation to add state personnel to help the NYPD with bag checks.
With crime having gone up double digits compared with this point in 2023 and civilians and employees being attacked, the Transit Workers Union has slammed their bosses at the MTA for failing to protect hem.
‘We stand ready to assist Local 100 as they confront this plague of violence – and transit executives who are either inept or indifferent to the harm inflicted on their own employees day and night,’ said TWU President John Samuelsen.
‘On workplace safety, the MTA has been an abysmal failure. Assaults against transit workers in the subway increased nearly 60 per cent last year.’
‘We know people feel unsafe,’ Adams, himself a former transit police officer, admitted
The mayor said that he will be bringing back methods like bag checks that have been previously used in times of great suspicion
Adams, a Democrat, is partnering with New York Governor and fellow liberal Kathy Hochul, who says she’s sending in state authorities to help deal with the problem after the pair met with MTA officials last week
Subway crime has been on the rise of late, with 2023 showing the most subway assaults since 1996. There have been three homicides on the rails to start the year, compared to none at this point last year.
NYPD Chief of Transit has made his own efforts to confront the problem, with more than 1,000 cops infused to the transit system and credits it with a 17 per cent crime reduction February.
Riders and even subway performersare attempting to make their own voices heard, led by a recent victim of subway crime.
Iain Forrest, 29, a medical student and musician, was playing his electric cello at the 34th Street Herald Square Station on the evening of February 13.
In a shocking moment caught on video, an unidentified woman strode over, picked up the metal water bottle he’d set on the ground and smashed it over his head. The bottle clattered to the ground as Forrest clutched his head in pain.
Forrest announced on Instagram earlier Sunday that he’s formed a coalition with his fellow musicians called the Subway Performers Advocacy Group (SPAG) but says that for the time being, he will longer entertain underground.
‘[I]t does kind of break my heart that this is something that has to stop indefinitely, barring some sort of systemic change with protection for performances in the subway,’ he said.
The cellist who was bludgeoned over the head by a stranger wielding a water bottle as he performed in the New York City subway last week says he’s done performing on platforms
SPAG’s stated goal is to ask the MTA and NYPD to track statistics of crimes against subway musicians so that police resources can be ‘smartly allocated to where they are needed to prevent attacks.’
Forrest, who said that his attacker who got away still hasn’t been caught, told the New York Daily News he didn’t understand what exactly had happened to him until the attacker literally hit him.
‘I couldn’t quite get my bearings and it was only when I saw my metal water bottle rolling around on the ground and I saw the crowd’s face – in awe, disbelief and shock – that I realized, I think someone just smashed the back of my head with my metal water bottle,’ he said.
