Despite terror & trauma, cops say millions use subway without harm
Rush hour commuters were left rattled Friday by the bloody subway shooting on a packed Brooklyn A train that left a 36-year-old man fighting for his life — but cops were quick to say that despite the caught-on-video carnage, “millions” of other commuters “got to their destination safely.”
“Nobody’s talking about the millions of people that got to their destination safe,” NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry said outside the Hoyt-Schermerhorn station, where Thursday’s shooting occurred. “We [had] this one incident — and I know that it’s going to leave a traumatic experience on the people that were affected by this — but also there were people that got to their destination safely.”
Hannah Mortenga of Manhattan, who takes a C train to get to her retail job, saw the video of panicked straphangers running to the other side of the train car during the 4:45 p.m. clash and realized at any moment she could have been one of those victims.
“It’s intimidating,” she said about the ongoing violence in the city’s subway system. “You know once you’re on [the train] there’s nothing you can really do. It’s like a plane.
“I think there’s been a lot of really weird people on the actual subway,” she said. “I don’t like feeling uncomfortable on the subways.”
During Thursday’s brawl, a 32-year-old man somehow managed to get the gun away from the older aggressor before shooting him in the head during the 4:45 p.m. clash on a Manhattan-bound train heading into the Hoyt-Schermerhorn St. station.
A woman who was with the younger man and sliced the victim’s back with a blade remained at large and was being actively sought by police.
On Thursday night MTA Chair Janno Leiber said the panicked straphangers caught on video cowering on the opposite side of the subway car were the “real victims.”
“They’re having a harrowing time because they’re on a train with someone with a gun,” he said.
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams agreed.
“The videos were horrible to watch and my heart really did go out to everybody that had to witness that altercation,” Adams said on WNYC radio Friday morning, supporting the city’s move to deploy more cops into the subway system.
“Whatever it takes to make New Yorkers feel safer, that is absolutely what needs to happen,” she said. “If the presence of police officers makes our citizens, residents feel safer, we absolutely need to make that happen.”
Commuter Lynn Rutherford, 62, said she’s not worried about her own personal safety on the subways, but was concerned about the broader problems an uptick on violence in the transit system can create.
“What I think about is the damage it does to New York City as a destination for tourists and a destination for business,” Rutherford said. “I think New York City is losing its cache as a business center and a financial center partly due to crime and the idea that it is rising.
“It’s all well and good to say, ‘Well it’s not really rising … compared to 2021,’ but it’s still going up compared to 2018 or something,” she said. “I think that that is more of a concern.”
The Thursday afternoon bloodbath was the ninth shooting to take place in the city subway system this year, a startling statistic that has left many commuters on edge. By this time last year, there was just one shooting.
Last week, Gov. Hochul announced the deployment of 750 members of the National Guard and 250 state and MTA police officers to city subway stations to conduct bag searches as violent incidents continue across the system.
No National Guard members were seen at the Hoyt-Schermerhorn station Thursday, but there
were several NYPD cops who were on the mezzanine level and ran onto the platform when they heard the shots, police and MTA officials said.
“These cops went the extra step when there was a shooting,” Lieber said at the Hoyt-Schermerhorn station Friday morning. “This could have been something much worse, but as people rushed up the stairs, they ran down the stairs.”
Daughtry said the shooting was one of six felony crimes to happen in the city’s transit system on Thursday. Police could not immediately say how many misdemeanor crimes occurred.
“Millions of riders rode the subway yesterday,” Daughtry said.
NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Public Information Tarik Sheppard doubled down on Daughtry’s comments saying that city subways move 200 million riders per year, a huge number compared to the 436 felony crimes cops have seen at city train stations this year as of Sunday. The number is a 13% increase over the 385 felony crimes that occurred in transit last year.
There were 458 misdemeanor assaults and petit larcenies in the same time period — an average of six a day. Information on other misdemeanor categories were not provided Friday.
“Every victim matters, but we’re talking about a very miniscule amount of violence that happens in our system,” Sheppard said. “While it can be polarizing and it can put people in fear, we understand it, [but] we are keeping a large system and a large amount of people safe.”
Mayor Adams on Friday admitted that perception plays an important role in public safety.
“Public safety is not only the stats. Public safety is how people feel,” Adams said on WPIX Friday. “I can say that crime is down in our subway system and that crime is down in the city and we’re the safest big city in America — but that means nothing if people don’t feel that.”
Adams believes the aggressor in Thursday’s shooting was suffering from “mental health illness.”
“When you look at that video, you’ll see the nexus between someone who appears, from what I saw, to be dealing with severe mental health illness, sparking a dispute on our subway system,” Adams said on 77 WABC. “This just really reinforces what I have been attempting to do. You gotta give us more power, Albany, to deal with involuntary removals for those who are dealing with severe mental health illness.”