FELONIES TAKE EXPRESS
Subway robs double in just one month
Subway robberies and overall felonies underground soared last month, new MTA statistics reveal.
The figures show that felony robberies more than doubled from October to November, jumping from 40 to 88 incidents, according to documents included in public materials released for Monday’s MTA Transit Committee meeting.
Overall felonies, including grand larceny and assault, increased 45 percent month to month.
At the same time, the NYPD has recorded a 79 percent increase in hate crimes, driven by a 240 percent spike in attacks based on sexual orientation and a 233 percent spike in anti-Asian attacks, according to the board materials.
According to MTA records, the 235 “major felonies” committed underground in November fell just under the 244 felonies reported by the NYPD in November 2019 — pre-pandemic, when more than 2 million more people were riding the subways each day.
Yet while grand larcenies accounted for the majority of subway crimes recorded by cops two Novembers ago, last month’s records showed a 51 percent spike in robberies compared with 2019.
News of November’s troubling trends comes after MTA Chairman Janno Lieber told The Post in multiple interviews last week that he remained focused on rider safety despite transit crime rates trending down over the summer and fall.
So far this year, overall major subway felonies are down 3.6 percent compared with the same period in 2020.
Felony assault surged in the spring, but has since dipped about 40 percent.
“Major crimes, broadly speaking, are down, but if you’re somebody coming back to work — or not — and you’re having interactions with people who make you uneasy, that’s a problem,” Lieber said Friday.
Lieber has pushed the NYPD to increase its visibility in the transit system, after Mayor de Blasio boosted rush-hour patrols at the beginning of the summer at the MTA’s behest.
Lieber said last week that he believes Mayor-elect Eric Adams will heed his advice to make the increased manpower noticeable to everyday riders.
Adams, a former cop who takes office Jan. 1, has said the administrative responsibilities at NYPD’s Transit Bureau should be handled by civilian workers so officers can be out in the system on patrol.
“The mayor-elect has said again and again that we need to get more transit cops off desks and into the subway system, better dispersed to cover more area,” said Adams’ spokesman, Evan Thies.
Pandemic woes
The rate of subway crimes soared amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 compared with 2019, when the NYPD recorded a comparatively scant 1.47 felonies per million riders. That said, subway crime totals in 2021 are the lowest in 25 years, according to the MTA.
Yet the uptick in transit felonies spurred a year of heated back and forth between MTA leaders and the current mayor, who initially responded to the MTA’s push for more subway cops by insisting that “real New Yorkers” felt safe on mass transit.
De Blasio went on to increase the number cops on duty on the subways during the morning and afternoon rush hours, which both the MTA and city cited as reducing the crime rate in June and July after a frightening, headline-generating surge in felony assaults in May.
May’s incidents included a 35minute slashing spree on multiple subway lines that injured five earlymorning commuters. The attacks spurred a war of words between then-Interim NYC Transit President Sarah Feinberg and de Blasio, with Feinberg accusing the mayor of “negligence on the issue.”
‘Need to feel safe’
Lisa Daglian, director of the MTA’s independent citizens advisory committee, said Lieber and his team were right to focus on how cops are deployed.
“People need to feel safe in the subway,” Daglian said. “It’s about date-driven deployment and mak
ing sure there’s sufficient resources in the system.”
Daglian called on the NYPD to share more information about where, when and by whom crimes are being committed in the subways so the public understands the realities of riding.
“There’s gotta be something that’s driving the numbers up,” she said. “It would be really helpful to see where the problems are so we could see where the solutions might lie.”
An MTA rep reiterated the authority’s call for the NYPD to make itself more visible.
“We’ve said repeatedly we want the NYPD to put more officers in visible locations like subway platforms and on trains where riders feel vulnerable,” said spokesman Aaron Donovan said. “That enables faster response to emergencies . . . and allows officers to quickly see and address people displaying mentalhealth problems who could be a danger to themselves and others — with the ability to intervene before a crime happens.”