This week formally kicked off Mayor Eric Adams’ plan to restore security on the New York City Subway, which has increased by more than 58%, and as a final climax, last weekend, at least eight attacks on trains and stations were reported, including passengers being stabbed, beaten and a couple of robberies. Half of the attacks occurred in the early morning hours, two at night and the other two in the afternoon, with Manhattan being the most affected county, with three violent acts, followed by Brooklyn and the Bronx, with two attacks and Queens with one. case, at the Jamaica station.
Aaron Donovan, spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), was concerned about the wave of violence over the weekend and said that “what happened this weekend cannot be normal”.
And while the City is deploying about 2,500 policemen who will be patrolling stations and trains, and 30 teams of joint response, which includes social workers, medical experts and psychiatrists, to approach the homeless and mentally ill and offer them services and care, passengers like Julio Monroy expect to see changes very soon.
“It seems terrible to me to know that this weekend there were 8 stabbed people on the train, and I hope that things improve quickly, because the truth is that one no longer feels safe with so many crazy people and homeless people. who walk like Pedro around their house on the trains,” said the Colombian, who works at the Kennedy airport, and who mentioned not having seen any change in the first two days of the plan.
“I I know that this is not going to be fixed overnight, but I have not seen anything new in the presence of the police, and something that I think should be an immediate priority is that the police patrol stations and trains, especially at night and early in the morning, which is when there are fewer passengers,” said the father, who added that on Monday and Tuesday on his route from Manhattan to Jamaica, Queens, where one of the eight attacks over the weekend took place, he did not see a single police neither in the cars nor on the platforms. “I always use the train from 5: 13 in the morning and I arrive at my destination at 6: 20 and I did not see any officers on the way”.
The trains and stations of lines A, E, 1, 2, N and R, will be the first ones that integrated support groups will focus on.
Mayor promises zero tolerance
Mayor Eric Adams was blunt in affirming that although the carelessness that for decades has reigned in the public transport system of the Big Apple, where homeless people sleeping in cars , people smoking, passengers creating unhealthy conditions and people entering without paying became part of “normal”, the problem will not be solved overnight, but the beginning is zero tolerance towards these behaviors.
“The (train) system is not made to be housing, it is made to be transporta and we have to return to that basic philosophy,” said the local president, who explained that from now on all people traveling on the subway will be required to leave at the last stop of each train line, and there, the teams will offer services to the homeless.
Homeless people have been a problem for many years
This Tuesday the Mayor explained that the deployment plan for the specialized teams will be carried out gradually, and said that the first ones left on Monday 15 groups of the 16 contemplated by the initiative, to the stations and trains and the first actions were registered.
“We had contact with 100 people in the transportation system…remember that this is about reinforce the law but also a matter of dignity”, said Adams, mentioning that the plan is very well organized and that the goal is not to persecute anyone and expose them to cameras. “We talk about counseling, housing, giving people the services they need; let’s be clear, this is a problem that has existed for a long time”.
“We are concerned with that plan”
Despite the fact that the president affirms that the objective of his action plan in the metro is to return order and security so that more passengers use the trains, and at the same time connect the homeless and mentally ill with help , community groups claim that the plan stigmatizes and criminalizes the homeless and those with mental illnesses.
“We are concerned with this plan because it is based on criminalization and police strategies to address something that is fundamentally a mental health and housing crisis,” said Jacqueline Simos of the New York Homeless Coalition.
Danny Pearlstein, policy director of the Riders Alliance organization, was alarmed by the violent acts at the end of week and insisted that the security plan d in the subway must have a better service provision component.
“The attacks on the subway this weekend show that passenger safety is about more than ending homelessness in public transportation, as important as that is,” the activist said.
“Governor Hochul should operate more frequent trains to reduce long waits on platforms and travel times, and give more passengers more reasons to take the subway. The lesson of the past generation is that policies that increase the number of subway passengers also make the system safer”, he added.
The 8 attacks reported over the weekend at the Subway:
The first incident involved a man from 31 years traveling on the 1 line, in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, around 8: 30 pm Friday who was stabbed in the forearm, after asking a man to stop smoking on the street 150.
The second incident occurred on Saturday, at 3: 00 at dawn, when a man from 45 years ago was leaving a subway station in Queens and three strangers approached him to rob him. Before fleeing, they stabbed the victim.
The third violent event occurred around 3: 00 Saturday pm, at the Van Siclen station on the 3 train in Brooklyn when a man hit a woman from 20 years in the head and stabbed her three times in the stomach .
2738231The fourth attack happened on Saturday at 3: 22 pm, when a man from 74 years old who was traveling on train 2 heading North, in the Bronx, he was attacked with a knife by two women with whom he argued, and his cell phone was stolen. In connection with this fact, two adolescents were arrested.
The fifth incident occurred on Saturday at 8: 05 pm, when a man of 24 years ago he was leaving a subway station in Washington Heights and two men approached him to steal his wallet and cell phone, and one of them pulled out a knife and stabbed the victim in the right leg.
The sixth attack occurred on Sunday around 6: 10 pm, when a man from 31 Years traveling on the 6 train to Lower Manhattan, he was stabbed in the back and arm.
The seventh violent act was recorded at dawn this Monday is, towards 02: 30, when a man from 42 years old, who was waiting for the train on the platform, at a Brooklyn station, was attacked by a subject who did not stop looking at him, and when he asked him what was happening, the subject, from 58 years old pulled out an axe. The attacker was arrested and also had a screwdriver and a dagger.
The eighth violent attack was recorded around 2: 40 in the early morning, when a woman who was traveling on the 4 train was south from the Bronx, she was attacked by a homeless man who asked her and a friend she was going with to stop talking. The man hit her with a metal pipe.
Points of the plan Subway Security
NYPD police officers will enforce subway rules, such as no smoking, no drinking, no fighting, and no jumping the turnstile.
Will be displayed until 30 Joint Response Teams including staff from DHS, Department of Health, DNYPD, and community providers in high-need locations.
Police officers working in the Subway will be trained to enforce the rules, in a fair, respectful and transparent manner.
B-HEARD Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division teams will expand to six new campuses, more than doubling the re covered belts to 00. This plan answers non-violent mental health calls at 911 with professionals of mental health.
Medical services will be incorporated in DHS sites that serve unprotected homeless people.
Expanded DHS ‘Safe Havens’ programs and stabilization beds will offer on-site physical and behavioral health care.
There will be weekly meetings of the ‘Improved Outreach Task Force’ with leaders of 13 municipal and state agencies.
New reception and exploration centers will be created location of homeless people who are on trains and platforms.
The placement process in supportive housing will be streamlined and the process for eligibility.
State Government will be asked to expand psychiatric bed resources and amend the Kendra Act to improve the delivery of mental health care for New Yorkers in assisted outpatient treatment.
All passengers will be required to exit the trains and stations when the trains reach the end of their lines.
Crime in the Subway in figures:
8 violent attacks were recorded over the weekend.
300 Approximately serious crimes have been reported so far the 2022.
461 serious crimes in the Subway were reported last year.
