Despite Two Snowstorms, Crime in New York City has not Slowed Down

By Yehudit Garmaise

    Not even two snowstorms in one week have slowed the crime in New York City, creating the need for a reality check for Mayor Bill de Blasio.

   When a reporter today pointed that although subway ridership has plunged down to 30% of what it was before the COVID pandemic, “there have been four slashings in the past five days and statistics from the NYPD show that murders, rapes, assaults, and robberies are up” on the subways, Mayor de Blasio repeated the claim he made last week that "the subway is safer than in has been in years."

   No one else, however, seems to think so.

   “Why should people feel confident getting on the subways, and what you are doing to make them safe, especially now that middle schoolers will be returning to the classroom?” the reporter then challenged the mayor.

   “We have work to do always,” responded the mayor, who said that is why the NYPD has added personnel to the subways. “We will keep making adjustments: adding personnel, as needed, which is what ‘precision policing’ is all about.’”

   But on. Feb. 4, when CBS reporter Marcia Kramer asked the mayor what he would do to lessen New Yorkers' fears about using public transit after numerous subway shovings and slashings, Mayor de Blasio chided Kramer for stoking fear among New Yorkers.

   Kramer responded by quoting NYPD Police Commissioner Dermot Shea, who had said the day before on television, “Subway shovings and slashings have become too common, and they are very disturbing.

   “We need to talk about [subways shoving] because… we are saying take the police out of mental health illness. In appropriate circumstances, we support that, but there has got to be follow-up. These people are a danger.”

   But the mayor strangely denied that Shea ever said it and then emphasized the need for a horde of social workers to intervene with the city’s mentally disturbed residents.                                                                         

     Kramer again quoted Commissioner Shea, who had lamented that the city had pushed for transit workers to deal with the mentally ill and that “the police department has basically been taken out of dealing with these people on the subways.”