NY governor sends National Guard into subway system

New York Governor Kathy Hochul on Wednesday announced she is sending a force of nearly 1,000 including National Guard troops into New York City's subway system to conduct bag checks for weapons and "rid our subways of people who commit crimes''.

The additional security personnel — comprising 750 National Guard members, state police and transit police officers — were expected to begin appearing in the subway system by Wednesday's evening rush hour, and full deployment is likely to be completed by the weekend, officials say. The checks will be set up at heavily trafficked locations.

She said that if riders are stopped, they will have to consent to a bag check in order to enter the station. While they can refuse, they will be barred from entering if they do so.

"They can refuse," she said. "We can refuse them. They can walk."

Police in New York have long conducted random bag checks at subway entrances, though passengers are free to refuse and leave the station.

"Brazen heinous attacks on our subway system will not be tolerated," Hochul said in announcing the move at a news conference Wednesday, referring to a number of recent high-profile assaults.

"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 said.

Less than two hours after Hochul made her announcement, a female conductor on a train said she was hit with a glass bottle as the train was leaving a station in the Bronx. The man who hit her fled, and no arrests had yet been made, the police said. The conductor was in stable condition.

Last week, a subway conductor was slashed in the neck when he stuck his head out of the cabin window during a stop at a station in Brooklyn. A doctor on the train treated him, and he received 34 stitches before being released from a hospital.

Three homicides have taken place since January, and several brutal assaults have put the spotlight on safety in the nation's largest transit system.

The New York Police Department has recorded 97 assaults in the subway system this year as of Sunday, 13 more than in the same period of 2023.

Incidents such as grand larcenies, felony assaults and robberies have also skyrocketed.

The subway system also has been the scene of Asian hate crimes.

One such victim was Michelle Go, 40, of Asian descent, who was killed when she was pushed in front of a subway train at Times Square.

Data from the Hate Crime Task Force in 2022 revealed that of the 84 reported subway bias incidents, 30 targeted Asians, reflecting a 233 percent increase from 2020.

New York Police Department Transit Chief Michael Kemper said the number of arrests in the subway system have risen 45 percent this year. More than 3,000 arrests were made in the subway system in the first two months of the year; many of those arrested were repeat offenders, Kemper said.

Mayor Eric Adams announced plans on Tuesday to have more police patrolling the subways as the city attempts to curb a near 20 percent increase in crime levels during the first two months of 2024 compared with the same period last year, according to police data.

The deployment is part of what 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 propose legislation that 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.

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.

The governor's announcement on the increased patrols drew outrage from civil libertarians, who called the move an overreach that would infringe on the rights of commuters.

"Deploying troops to the subway will unfortunately increase the perception of crime," said Danny Pearlstein, a spokesman for the Riders Alliance, a transit advocacy group. "The police can't solve every problem," he said.

The union representing the city's transit workers applauded the deployment as "the beginning of real action".

Despite being a primary mode of transportation, subway ridership continues to lag pre-pandemic levels, when 5 million people took the subway daily. Current MTA figures indicate approximately 3 million daily riders.

mingmeili@chinadailyusa.com