A series of recent, high-profile crimes in the New York City subway system prompted Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday to send National Guard members into the sprawling underground network.
Hochul is ordering a force of nearly 1,000 people, comprising 750 National Guard members, state police and transit officers, to conduct bag checks at some of the busiest stations.
The effort, Hochul said, is intended to "rid our subways of people who commit crimes and [to] protect all New Yorkers whether you're a commuter or a transit worker."
"No one heading to their job or to visit family or go to a doctor appointment should worry that the person sitting next to them possesses a deadly weapon," she told reporters.
Thomas Taffe, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police Department’s chief of operations, said "reducing the fear of crime" is as important as "reducing crime itself."
"Our focus is to respond to issues that most affected riders, the feeling of disorder, that fear of crime," he said.
Several recent, well-publicized attacks have led to increasing anxiety on New York City subways.
“Let me be very, very clear,” Hochul said. “These brazen, heinous attacks on our subway system will not be tolerated.”
Sunday, a 64-year-old man was checking his phone when he was kicked into the tracks at Penn Station before good Samaritans helped get him out of harm's way.
A 27-year-old man was slashed aboard a northbound A train in Manhattan on Friday after the perpetrator allegedly made homophobic comments at him.
And last Thursday, a subway conductor was slashed in the neck in Brooklyn when he stuck his head out of a southbound C train at Rockaway Avenue station in Brooklyn.
Hochul called for a major expansion in subway surveillance cameras.
"If a camera had been positioned on Alton Scott’s conductor cabin last Thursday, we probably would have already apprehended the person who slashed his neck," she said. "Or maybe they wouldn’t have done it at all."
Hochul also said she is proposing legislation that would empower judges to ban subway criminals from riding New York City rails. She equated her proposal to laws that bar motorists convicted of DWI from getting behind the wheel.
"So basically, if you assault someone on the subways, you won’t be on the subways," she said. "And a judge will now have the power to make sure that for at least three years they’ll have the ability to keep you off the subways."
Despite the recent uptick in subway crime, MTA CEO Janno Lieber insisted that a disproportionate number of bad underground acts are committed by a relatively small number of New Yorkers.
Thirty-eight people were arrested and accused of crimes against transit employees last year, and they had more than 600 prior arrests, Lieber said. He claimed that 1% of subway suspects were responsible for more than 20% of the crime.
"We need to have a collaboration with the DA so they have that full information about the history of these people, the impact that they have had, if they are career subway criminals," Lieber said.
