(AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
MTA Finances
The New York City subway is looking a lot less safe after four people, including an MTA employee, were attacked in separate instances Wednesday morning.
An on-duty MTA employee was punched around 7:45 a.m. in the Times Square subway station. According to police, the attacker screamed at the female victim, pushed her, then punched her in the face. The worker was treated by EMS and the attacker fled the scene.
In Queens, a woman was hit in the face on an F train around 8:30 a.m. at the 75th Avenue Station in an unprovoked attack. 29-year-old Andres Gonzalez was arrested for the incident.
A 35-year-old man who was also in the Times Square station sitting on a bench, was attacked around 9 a.m., getting slashed in the face after an attacker spit on him. The attacker then ran from the scene.
In Brooklyn, a woman was stabbed in the back and shoulder around 10:30 a.m. on the Pennsylvania Avenue Station platform after a verbal argument. The attacker also fled the scene.
According to a press release from the NYPD, the overall index crime in NYC rose 30.4% in April compared with April 2020, with 111 of those crimes being transit-related. In a press conference, Mayor Bill de Blasio says that the reason for the uptick in crime correlates to the COVID-19 pandemic allowing fewer people in public.
“The more people come back to the subways, the safer the city will get, de Blasio said. “Pre-pandemic, one index crime per one million riders each day. We can get back to that, but we need to bring the city back.”
The Mayor also touched on preventing repeat subway offenders from riding the subway as an option to combat crime.
“If someone has committed repeat offenses in the subways, they don’t belong in the subway,” de Blasio said. “That’s another form of consequence: If you do that to your fellow New Yorkers, there has to be a penalty.”
