New York City is rolling out its new subway safety plan, and it comes after yet another violent weekend for commuters. NBC New York’s Gaby Acevedo reports.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams stood with NY Gov. Kathy Hochul Friday morning at a Manhattan subway station and took the wraps off a new plan to combat transit crime in the city.
At least 5 people were stabbed in the subway system in just over 24 hours since then. A sixth person was stabbed Sunday evening on the 6 line near Canal Street.
The latest attacks add to a mounting toll that threaten to derail the city's economic recovery. Major crimes in transit are up 65% this year - an average of one victim every four hours, around the clock.
Adams and Hochul acknowledge that office workers won't return to their offices post-COVID, and the city's economy won't bounce back in full, if people don't feel safe getting around the city. That was the impetus behind the 17-page plan scheduled to take effect Monday that'll add cops and mental health teams to the system and more actively enforce the laws that are already on the books.
But it will take time to implement, and in the meantime the violence isn't abating.
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Just before 3 p.m. Saturday, on the 3 train platform at Livonia and Van Siclen Avenue in Brooklyn, a man punched a 20-year-old woman in the back, police said. They argued, and the man pulled a knife and stabbed the woman three times in the abdomen.
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Around 8:30 p.m. Saturday, a 24-year-old man was on the mezzanine at the W. 168th Street station in Manhattan when cops say two teens approached him and tried to rob him. A struggle ensued and he was stabbed once in the leg with a boxcutter. The suspects fled the scene.
About 30 minutes later, at the W. 116th Street station, a 31-year-old man riding the 1 train encountered two people smoking something on the train. When he asked the smoker to move, the smoker pulled a knife and stabbed the man in the arm. He was taken to the hospital in stable condition.
The two attacks late Saturday night follow two earlier incidents the prior 24 hours -- a homeless man stabbed after an attempted robbery early Saturday morning at Jamaica station in Queens; and a slashing late Friday evening at the Briarwood station in Queens.
