A 34-year-old passenger was shot twice during an argument aboard a subway train in Manhattan early this morning, hours after Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul proclaimed that crime had dropped in the last three months in the chaotic New York Subway.
The unidentified victim was on the Brooklyn-bound N train approaching the Canal St. station around 1 a.m. today when he began fighting with a man and a woman, New York police said.
The dispute escalated, the man drew a gun and fired twice, hitting the victim in the arm and chest. The couple fled on Canal St. and have not been apprehended. Paramedics took the victim to Bellevue Hospital, in stable condition. It was not immediately clear what sparked the argument, police said.
Hours earlier at the Financial District’s Fulton Transit Center, Governor Hochul and Mayor Adams celebrated that placing additional NYPD officers on subways had helped achieve a 28% reduction in robberies and a 16% reduction in overall crime in the Metro since October.
There are 1.7 major crimes for every million passengers so far in 2023, the lowest number since the pandemic hit the city, Hochul said, quoted by Daily News. “That is an incredible change. The data shows us that New Yorkers feel safer,” said the governor.
Ten people were killed on the Metro system in 2022, two more than the year before, NYPD officials said. Police officers also saw a 14% increase in robberies and a 19% increase in assaults last year compared to 2021.
Since taking office a year ago, former NYPD Mayor Adams has announced multiple times that he would double the number of NYPD officers in the subway system in a beefed-up security plan to deal with violence in the chaotic NYC Subway. But so far crime and chaos have continued to thrive.
At the same time, MTA faces million-dollar losses due to the increasing number of users who access the Metro and buses without paying. In addition, it is estimated that some 3,400 homeless people are currently living in subway cars and stations.
No arrests have been made or suspects identified in the shooting this morning. Anyone with information should call 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) and in Spanish 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). Also through crimestoppers.nypdonline.org or by text to 274637 (CRIMES), followed by TIP577. All communications are strictly confidential.