City and state officials in New York are at odds over the best approach to make straphangers feel safer riding the rails after two fatal stabbings.
Sarah Feinberg, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s interim head, has called for the NYPD to increase its subway patrol by 1,000 officers to stem any budding crime wave. Police officials said 644 additional officers would be adequate, and any more would be excessive, according to the Wall Street Journal.
At a press conference, Feinberg said the agency is concerned about the “uptick in certain crimes and the significant lack of mental health assistance available to those who are clearly experiencing a crisis.”
Rigoberto Lopez, known as the “A-Train Ripper,” is accused of brutally killing two homeless men, the New York Post reported. The paper said he has a history of mental health issues.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Malik Jackson, who police say was naked, pushed a straphanger onto the tracks. Jackson died after he landed on the third rail after a scuffle with other riders.
Kathleen O’Reilly, the head of the NYPD transit unit, said the number of policemen assaulted in January 2019 has tripled. The NYPD reported 42 felony assaults in the subway throughout January, with 15 of the victims being police officers.
The COVID outbreak has dramatically reduced the number of New Yorkers who commute to work, and ridership is down from 5.5 million each weekday to about 1.7 million, the Journal reported. Feinberg said the subway system will play a vital role in helping the city rebound.
TREND FORECAST: None of this comes as a surprise to Trends Journal subscribers – when the COVID War was launched, we had forecast there would be a large spike in crime.
As Gerald Celente has said, “When people lose everything and have nothing left to lose, they lose it.” And losing it they are: financially, mentally, and spiritually.
Those suffering from mental health issues can no longer be easily seen by their doctors, and living life under the constant fear of a media-generated, hyped-up contagion is pushing people to the brink. Mayor Bill de Blasio mentioned last week that five New York City public school students killed themselves since the start of the school year. He called the number “very, very painful.”
There were four suicides all of last year, and the Journal pointed out that there are still four months remaining in the school year. De Blasio said,
“It’s not easy when kids aren’t in person and that’s what’s causing so much of the problem here and it’s painful, but we really are trying to help every child… the best thing we can do is just get more and more kids back into school as quickly as possible.”
Crimes will continue to increase on subways as frustrations continue to grow. Politicians aren’t even pretending anymore that a return to normalcy is on the horizon.
