There was a string of crimes in the city's subway system over the weekend.
The city saw a stabbing in the Bronx, a man kicked onto the tracks and two separate slashings at Penn Station and on a Brooklyn train.
“It’s shocking to me too — and I’m doing this over 30 years, to hear something like that,” NYPD Chief of Transit Michael Kemper told NY1. “I’m curious who did it. Who is this person? How quickly are we going to identify this person and arrest him and hold him accountable?”
What You Need To Know
- Cameras in the transit command center allow the NYPD to see the more than 15,000 cameras at the push of a button in real-time
- The cameras can help get resources or photos out quickly in the event of a crime
- The 1,000 additional cops added in February are another law enforcement layer that has brought crime down from a 45% increase year over year in January to just over 13% by the end of February
Kemper said one way the city is fighting crime is with a transit command center, where police can see every one of the over 15,000 cameras in the system.
“If something were to happen or if there was a report of something happening, we can go in real time and view these cameras and then get that information out to the men and women that are in the system patrolling,” Kemper said.
There were no cameras on the platform at Rockaway Avenue, which is where the train conductor was slashed, though there were cameras elsewhere in the station.
“Let’s be real. I mean, we can’t have video covering every square inch of the subway system,” Kemper said. “That’s our goal. It’s an aggressive goal and we’ll be there, eventually.”
While cameras are now on more than 1,000 train cars, they cannot yet be viewed in real time, but their clarity helped lead police to an arrest in a deadly shooting aboard a D train Feb. 23.
Adding more cameras is just one way the city is trying to make the subway system safer. Having more police officers underground is another.
The mayor has ordered 1,000 more police officers a day in the transit system since the beginning of February.
“We’re shifting resources all the time, sometimes in the middle of the day,” Kemper said of the importance of proper deployment.
According to Kemper, arrests are up 45% for the year, and now crime is up only 13% year over year.
He said he hopes between cameras and officers, they can not only keep riders safe, but make them feel safe.
“Perception is real, it’s real to so many and that’s a big challenge that we have,” Kemper said. “And that’s something that we work very, very hard on improving every single day.”
He said one of the biggest obstacle to safety is repeat offenders.
Both Kemper and Gov. Kathy Hochul agree that judges need to take advantage of last year's changes to bail reform to keep recidivist criminals out of the subway system.
Meanwhile, he said the current surge will continue indefinitely.