3 suspects in custody in deadly shooting on Bronx subway, NYPD says
NEW YORK -- Police spent hours on Monday questioning three suspects in last Friday's deadly shooting on a Bronx D train.
NYPD sources said the questioning was taking place at the 46th Precinct. Detectives said one reason they were able to apprehend them is because of the cameras on that subway train.
In the middle of an MTA committee meeting, NYPD Transit Chief Michael Kemper learned that officers had found the suspects.
Detectives say 24-year-old Justin Herde, 38-year-old Betty Cotto, and 42-year-old Alfredo Trinidad assaulted a 45-year-old William Alvarez on a southbound D train on Friday morning before one of them shot and killed him.
"If you do something bad in our system, we will find you," NYC Transit head Richard Davey said.
NYPD sources say all three of the suspects have been arrested before -- Cotto for theft in 2006, Trinidad for fare evasion in 2012, and Herde for a 2021 misdemeanor assault.
At Monday's meeting, Chief Kemper said transit police are regularly arresting people with criminal records.
"We're making arrests at or near historic highs. The question is why are we arresting people 50 times, 100 times? At what point are there gonna be consequences?" Kemper said.
He said subway crime is up about 13% compared to this time last year, but has been improving over the last few weeks.
"Nothing to be happy about. We're not. We're focused. It's progress," Kemper said.
The NYPD says that progress is because of a surge in police officers assigned to the subway system this month. It's a similar response to the rise in subway crime about a year ago, but Kemper said the department wasn't able to sustain that plan.
"It was funded by money, overtime. It was funded by overtime, and that overtime was used. It was extremely successful," Kemper said.
Kemper said there are no plans to draw back from that plan again any time soon. CBS New York asked if, months down the road, the number of officers on trains could drop again due to funding and he said he wouldn't talk in hypotheticals.
As for those three suspects, they have not yet been formally charged, but we're told that could happen soon.
Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). You can also submit a tip via their website or via DM on Twitter, @NYPDTips. All calls are kept confidential.