Eric & Kathy: More subway cops & cams
Gov foe Zel: Too little!
Gov. Hochul and Mayor Adams said Saturday they will flood the city’s crime-ravaged subway system with more cops and speed up the installation of additional surveillance cameras.
Their “Cops, Cameras, Care” initiative — announced at Grand Central Terminal just over two weeks before Hochul tries to retain her seat on Election Day — includes the state-run MTA Police Department and the NYPD joining forces to add 1,200 extra overtime shifts daily to watch over the subway system.
This, they said, would translate into about 10,000 extra hours of cops patrolling subways and that New Yorkers would soon see officers covering subway platforms on extended tours in at least 300 stations during peak hours.
“I will continue to use the resources of the state of New York to bring this violence to an end,” crowed Hochul, who failed to provide cost estimates or say when much of the plan would be rolled out.
“The bottom line is that riders will see more officers in the system, and so will those thinking of breaking the law,” Adams said.
Hochul said the state would help the city “defray” overtime costs through its public emergency safety fund “in the short term” and then look for dedicated funding sources moving ahead. The city is already hundreds of millions of dollars over its NYPD overtime budget.
Hochul and Adams also said they’ll create new 25-bed inpatient units at two psychiatric centers to help get homeless, seriously mentally ill people out of the subway system and into shelter.
The governor added that plans she announced last month to equip each of the MTA’s 6,500 subway cars with two surveillance cameras over three years are moving ahead of schedule and are expected to be completed by late 2024.
Lee Zeldin, Hochul’s opponent in the gubernatorial race, bashed the announcement, coming two weeks before the election and only a day before a poll showed the Republican ahead of the incumbent.
“How out of touch are you if you think that providing 50 beds is going to take care of this issue?” Zeldin said at an event in Queens.
“She says nothing about cashless bail. Nothing about ‘Less is More’ [parole reform], nothing about raise the age, nothing about DAs refusing to enforce the law.”
Police Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch ripped the initiative as “unsustainable” because the NYPD is already has 12.4% fewer cops on the subways than in 2020.
“The answer is not to squeeze them for more forced OT,” he said.
The city is already hundreds of millions of dollars over its NYPD overtime budget.
Vincent Vallelong, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, also questioned the plan.
“Cameras will not deter crime,” he said. “There will still be a victim and the laws they have put and kept in place unwilling to change are the reason we are at this juncture.
“Politics should never compromise new safety and security of our families.”
Earlier Saturday, Adams kicked off his two-day major summit aimed at tackling the Big Apple’s surging crime problem.
He met for about four hours behind closed doors at Gracie Mansion with district attorneys, defense lawyers and other major stakeholders, who didn’t bring up the topic of bail reform, sources said.