New York Governor Kathy Hochul will deploy 750 National Guardsmen and an additional 250 state troopers into the New York subway system to deter violent crime, which has spiked in the transit system in recent months.
In February, New York City Mayor Eric Adams added 1,000 police officers to patrol the platforms. But random attacks continue, with several transit workers recently injured on the job.
Naturally, this didn't sit well with the Transport Workers Union. The union had a brief work stoppage last week after a conductor on an A train was slashed. And shortly after Hochul's announcement, another female conductor reported she was hit by a glass bottle thrown by an unknown assailant as the train was pulling away.
Richard Davis, the president of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, said the plan did not go far enough.
“We will not be pacified,” Davis said in a statement. The surge “cannot be just a temporary measure. It must remain in place.”
The National Guard will primarily check bags in the station to prevent weapons from being brought onto the platform.
“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,” the governor said.
That includes being accosted by mentally ill people.
The deployment is part of what Ms. Hochul described as a five-point plan, which would provide $20 million to pay for 10 teams of mental health workers who would help people on the subway. The plan would also introduce bills, which would have to be approved by the State Legislature, that would allow judges to ban people convicted of a violent crime from riding the subways, add cameras to train conductors’ control booths and coordinate with prosecutors to track repeat offenders.
Ms. Hochul said the mental health teams, which were formed in January, would respond to the “most severe cases of mental health crisis” and help New Yorkers get access to treatment and housing with social services.
But Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, is not at all pleased with the governor's actions. She claimed the governor is ignoring “longstanding problems of homelessness, poverty or access to mental health care.”
Addressing all of those problems is a noble goal. But if your wife or your husband is pushed onto the tracks or knifed by a mentally ill person, you're not going to give a fig about anything except getting the violent crazies away from the public.
That's what Hochul's deployment and "get tough" attitude are all about. New York Democrats were slaughtered by Republicans in 2022, and it was the crime issue that drove voters to the polls. Hochul, Adams, and the Democratic Party are trying to head off another election-day massacre.
In mid-2022, there was about one violent crime for every one million rides on the subway, according to a New York Times analysis, making the chances of falling victim to such a crime remote. Since then, those chances have become even lower, as the crime rate in the transit system has fallen and ridership has increased.
Still, the governor’s deployment comes as statistics show a murkier picture this year: Three homicides have taken place since January, and several brutal assaults, including the slashing of the conductor, have once again raised questions about safety.
Many ordinary New Yorkers are more apprehensive about the additional security than they are fearful of crime.
“I ride the subway all over Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens, and I don’t want the National Guard on the subway. I’ve felt safe," April Glad, 62, told the Times. She added that politicians “whip people up with fears that aren’t real, that aren’t based on anything.”
The perception of danger isn't a mirage. New York Democrats found that out in 2022.
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