NEW YORK — Following a mass shooting inside a train car at a Brooklyn subway station Tuesday morning, some New Yorkers have said they are fearful of mass transit.
"What happened today, definitely would not want that to happen to my child or anybody else's child. It's definitely scary," one Brooklyn resident told NY1. "They got to put more law enforcement in the subways."
It's a sentiment that has grown over the past few months amid a rise in violence underground, but MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said the agency is focusing on improving safety in the subway system.
During an appearance on "Mornings On 1," Lieber acknowledged that while the cameras at the 36th Street station were not functioning properly, cameras elsewhere were able to capture the suspect moving about the system.
"They do have images from three perspectives of the guy going into the system and they're looking at a lot of other videos. So, there's a lot of investigation going on that's going to yield, I think, some more information," he said.
Lieber noted that the camera program, which the agency has invested millions of dollars in, has been an important tool in fighting crime, and has helped to identify the suspect in Tuesday's shooting.
"We've got 600 cameras just on that one line," he said. "Ten thousand cameras in the system overall. So the NYPD has been combing through all of that data."
Lieber notes that moving forward, he'd like to see the camera system expanded further, possibly to include at least one camera on every train platform in the system.
During an appearance on "Good Morning, America" on Wednesday, Mayor Eric Adams also said he would he would like to see new metal detecting technology that can identify weapons utilized in the system.
"Technology has advanced so much," Adams said. "I sent my deputy mayor of public information to go to several conventions that look at the various new technologies and there's a new method that can detect weapons that are not traditional metal detectors that you see at airports."
Lieber seemed to be open to the possibility, noting on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that the agency is looking at the "forefront of technology." However, he stressed that he does not want to "create an environment where people can't go about their business."