New York City subway system reeling after 3 violent attacks on Monday
NEW YORK -- Police say a man was pushed in front of a 4 train in Harlem and killed, one of three violent crimes in the subway system on Monday.
Hours earlier, a 52-year-old man was stabbed in the neck on the J train at the Kosciuszko Street station and a 21-year-old woman was stabbed near turnstiles at the Franklin Avenue station.
All of it happened on the same day the NYPD said it had a plan to make the rails safer by cracking down on fare evaders.
But some say this tactic could target commuters of color.
"The trains are crazy these days," commuter Prince Woodard said.
Transit crime is up 4% so far this year compared to last, and up 8% compared to 14 years ago.
"The tone of law and order starts at the turnstiles," NYPD Chief of Transit Michael Kemper said.
Earlier Monday, the NYPD announced a week-long push to crack down on fare evasion in the subway, deploying an additional 800 officers to the transit system to stop people from jumping the turnstiles.
"Who jump the turnstile? I don't think that's the real problem," commuter Esther Medina said.
"To have cops visible will help," another person said.
"I think it's another reiteration of 'broken windows' policing which we saw was a failed model of addressing criminality," commuter Indira Martinez added. "I don't think going after folks who don't have the $2.75 for a subway fare is doing anything to address the real issues plaguing our city."
The NYPD says of the 20 people it arrested for gun possession in the subway system so far this year, 11 were people police stopped from going through the turnstiles.
"Fare evasion enforcement and turnstile presence is a key component to our crime-reduction strategy," Kemper said.
Last year, the NYPD issued more than 124,000 civil summonses and more than 1,300 criminal summonses for fare evasion, its highest number of fare-evasion tickets in at least five years.
"It's clear the NYPD has shifted their focus to this low-level enforcement in their practices, but these racial disparities have continued and they've worsened, actually," said Anna Stenkamp, research associate at John Jay College's Data Collaborative for Justice.
A new report from John Jay College of Criminal Justice found over the last two years, 85% of all criminal summonses in New York City were issued to Black and Hispanic people who combined make up just 52% of the city's population.
"Black and brown people are overly burdened with the stops and interactions with the NYPD, so I wouldn't expect fare evasion to be any different," Stenkamp said.
The NYPD says it plans to continue fare-evasion crackdowns in the weeks ahead.
Anyone with any information on the three underground crimes on Monday 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.
