Keep track of yourself, MTAer says
Suggest shove victims at fault
An MTA board member Tuesday appeared to at least partly blame the victims of some recent subway pushes, saying the straphangers should have been more aware of their surroundings at the time they were shoved.
“An alert person would not have been subject to some of these things,” Andrew Albert told The Post.
Albert, who represents the New York City Transit Riders Council on the board, said he believes at least some recent shove victims were “standing likely close to the edge and were not paying attention to who was around them.”
He said other factors were also involved — and that both policing and mental-health services must be recognized as playing a role in the crimes.
“There were some people who just came out of nowhere and pushed people, like that poor woman who was pushed into a train that was passing her by,” he said. “There’s no doubt about that — anybody who pushes somebody in front of a train is not in their right mind.”
The nonvoting board representative added that more cops should be stationed at turnstiles “because the people committing these crimes likely did not pay their fares,’’ so they could be stopped there.
City subways saw a handful of platform shoves in early October, including an Oct. 4 incident in which a 42-year-old woman was pushed into an arriving train at Times Square. Alleged assailant Anthonia Egegbara, 29, is charged with attempted murder.
Lisa Daglian of the MTA’s Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee agreed with Albert that straphangers should be more aware of their surrounding — adding that mental-health resources as well as the presence of cameras, police, MTA workers and other riders are part of the equation.
“There’re always interesting characters who ride along with you, and it behooves all of us as riders to make sure that we’re aware of our surroundings,” Daglian said. “As more people are back and more people are filling our city and our streets in our region, there’s a different feeling of safety, of comfort. I’ve been on platforms and I’ve been on trains, you know, there are a lot more eyes on the system.”
But angry subway riders approached by The Post did not take kindly to the pols’ advice.
Raged one commuter from Queens, “More aware?! Watch the videos of women getting thrown in front of moving trains and say, ‘Yeah, they should have been paying more attention.’ It’s crazy people!
“What these guys are really saying is, ‘Kick the problem to the next person,” said the man, a security guard at a Manhattan clothing store. “‘Don’t let ’em get you. Let ’em get the next guy, the smaller, the weaker guy, the women, the children.’ Bulls--t!”
“The reason why I take the train and don’t drive to certain places is because I am too tired,” said Mutiat Soyemi, 22, of East New York. “If I have a long train ride, like an hour train ride, you want me to sit there and be alert the whole train ride? No.”
Ruth Adeyemi, 24, of Brooklyn, said, “I feel like we need more security and they should put a cop in each car of the train and outside of the train stations.”