Roy Higgins was arrested today on suspicion of dragging a woman into a Queens Metro station and attempting to rape her on a nearby street.
NYPD announced Higgins’ arrest (29) exactly one week after the attack occurred around 9: 45 am del 22 from april. He was accused of grabbing the 22 year-old victim inside the Flushing-Main Street station and forcing her up the stairs and down Main Street toward Kissena Boulevard.
He then took her to the lobby of a building, where he allegedly forcibly restrained the victim and exposed her genitalia, police said. The young woman was able to free herself and fled. Higgins now faces charges of attempted criminal sex act, public lewdness and unlawful imprisonment, police said.
The incident occurred in the midst of a major debate about the ability of the police to New York to keep subway riders safe, where police presence has in theory increased due to a surge in violent underground crime, including two shootings this month.
Earlier this week, Mayor Eric Adams said he was “disappointed” by the deployment of additional officers that were sent to the Metro to curb crime, he noted Pix11.
April has been one of the most violent months in the history of the New York Subway, since its foundation in 1904. On Tuesday 12, 29 people were injured in an early morning crime by a lone gunman, who shot and set off at least two grenades on a moving train in Brooklyn.
Hours later, Mayor Adams announced that the number of New York police officers would be doubled in the underground system, where he had already activated a reinforced security plan since February to deal with the violence. But the violence has not stopped.
This week, on Monday 25, a young man was fatally shot in a hail of bullets at the Jamaica Center station in Queens, which connects to JFK airport, the most in New York.
In general, this year there has been a long list of violent incidents in the New York subway this year, between robberies, attacks, accidents, natural deaths, suicides, fatal overdoses and homicides .
It is estimated that more than 350 people live in the New York subway and in February already 8 of them had died in 2022. A strong 84% of New Yorkers believe that conditions have worsened in the city since March 2020, when the pandemic started, according to a recent survey. The majority cited the problems in the Metro as one of the main reasons for urban deterioration.