At least seven people were stabbed in New York City’s subway system over the weekend, shortly after officials unveiled a new plan to combat the rise of violence on the city’s public transit.
Five people were stabbed while on the subway within 24 hours after Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul unveiled a ‘Subway Safety Plan,’ which will deploy more police and mental health teams across the subway system starting Monday.
A sixth person was stabbed Sunday evening, and a seventh was stabbed Monday morning at around 2.30 am, according to the New York Police Department.
While unveiling the new plan to tackle the homelessness and mental health related problems on the subways Mayor Adams spoke of his time as a transit cop, when crime was at a high.
‘Many of us feel, and the numbers are saying, we’re back again,’ Adams said. ‘It’s imperative that we have the right response, that has the combination of being humane but clear. The lack of clarity is creating the conditions that we’re seeing.’
The surge of attacks come as crime continues to rise in the city, particularly on public transit. Major crimes in the five boroughs are up by 65 percent this year, an average of six incidents a day, according to NBC News.
The first attack took place at around 5pm Friday evening in Queens, when a male victim was slashed in the forearm, the NYPD said. The victim was taken to the hospital for treatment and was in stable condition.
Another happened in Queens on Saturday, when a 46-year-old man was approached by three men who demanded money. They got into an argument and the victim was stabbed in the thigh.
Later that afternoon in Brooklyn, a 20-year-old female was stabbed three times in the abdomen after he punched her in the back. That evening at around 8.10pm, two men tried to rob a male victim, who they later stabbed in the leg.
Less than an hour later a verbal argument in the 116th street station in Harlem resulted in a male victim getting stabbed in the arm.
Another stabbing was reported at 9pm, when the victim confronted the attacker about smoking an unknown substance in the subway station. When the victim asked them to move, the suspect reportedly brandished a knife and stabbed the victim in the arm. The victim was taken to a local hospital and treated for a puncture wound.
Early Monday morning two separate assaults were reported, according to CNN. One involving a man swinging a hatchet, and another involving a man striking a woman in the face with a metal pipe.
The city’s new approach will include 30 ‘Joint Response Teams’ with personnel from the Department of Health, the Department of Homeless Service, the NYPD and community groups.
Police will also be required to enforce new mandates on the trains, which ban lying down on the seats, littering, drug use or ‘using the subway system for any purpose other than transportation.’
Adams and Hochul acknowledged that the majority of New York’s homeless population are not dangerous, an issue worsened by the pandemic, but that the economy will not be able to rebound fully with subway safety being such a cause for concern.
‘People tell me about their fear of using the [subway] system and we’re going to ensure that fear is not New York’s reality,’ Adams said.
The state is also working on getting more psychiatric beds at hospitals, Hochul said.
Many of the recent major crimes have been committed by people experiencing homelessness, including the death of Michelle Go, a 40-year-old woman who was fatally shoved in front of a train in Times Square in January.
The man who shoved Go, Martial Simon, was homeless and reportedly had a history of ’emotionally disturbed encounters.’
Tens of thousands of people sleep in the city’s shelter systems, but there are still thousands of uncounted people experiencing homelessness sleeping in the city’s streets, subway stations and trains.
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