New York City Mayor Eric Adams is hailing “frontline heroes” who responded to a subway shooting in Brooklyn, striking an upbeat tone about resiliency in the Big Apple as he scrambles to combat crime and unease on America’s largest transit system.
Mr. Adams said subway operators and first responders kept a terrifying situation at the 36th Street station on Tuesday from turning into a chaotic massacre. Each of the workers received a proclamation from the city.
“Calm, focused and you saved lives,” Mr. Adams, a Democrat, said Friday. “Thanks to you, no passenger was left behind, no lives were lost. And thanks to you, our city keeps running every day — day after day.”
Frank R. James, 62, is being held without bail after police alleged that he set off a smoke canister and opened fire on a train car and the station platform. Ten people were shot and 13 additional persons suffered other injuries.
It was the worst instance of subway violence in the city in nearly four decades and added to a sense of unease in the city, which is battling public safety and quality-of-life issues as it tries to regain a sense of normalcy amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The incident also heaped pressure on Mr. Adams, who was able to win the mayor’s chair after highlighting his status as a former cop who understood public safety — bucking the “defund the police” movement on the left. At the same time, he pointed to his background as a Black city resident who struggled in his youth and was beaten by city officers.
“Voters reasoned that he could take a tougher line against crime but [he] has the political cover of his race to deal with the alarming rise in street crime,” said Ross Baker, a politics professor at Rutgers University. “I think that he will move increasingly in the direction of the ‘broken windows’ approach to policing — not so far as ‘stop and search,’ but much more aggressive policing. Fearful New Yorkers of all races would applaud such a move on Adams’s part.”
While murders are down slightly compared to this time in 2021, other major crime categories have spiked and there has been an 8% increase in shootings, at 322 compared with 297 at this time last year, according to NYPD CompStat statistics.
Transit crimes are up about 68% in 2022 compared with the same time last year, and a 40-year-old woman was killed when a man pushed her in front of a subway train in February.
Mr. Adams, who is self-isolating due to COVID-19 but keeping a busy media schedule, said he is trying to chip away at crime with a reestablished anti-gun unit and efforts to reform a “revolving door” criminal justice system.
He also pointed a finger at Albany, saying lawmakers must do more to fix the state’s 2019 bail reform law that’s been blamed for letting violent persons back on the streets.
Janno Lieber, the president and CEO of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, said Friday he is pressing state lawmakers to pass a bill that would stiffen penalties for people who assault transit workers.
“It isn’t just about what happened on that terrible day and the risk that our workers experienced. But every day, MTA workers are being assaulted and we need to have laws that deal with that more aggressively,” he said.
He said persons who kick, punch or spit at transit workers should face criminal penalties instead of walking away with a fine.
Mr. Lieber also went out of his way to credit Mr. Adams as the mayor faces one of the biggest tests of his first year.
“All through the last few days I was asked again and again and again: How will we make our system safer?” Mr. Lieber said. “And every time I said the same thing. Eric Adams has a commitment to subway safety at the top of his agenda and that he’s already, even before this event, making sure that we are taking the steps to make it real.”
Mr. James, the alleged subway shooter, was arrested while walking openly in the city. He reportedly enjoyed a bite at the famous Katz’s Delicatessen between the shooting and his arrest Wednesday.
Pressed on whether police could have nabbed him sooner, Mr. Adams defended the speed of the arrest. He said it took multiple days, for instance, to find one of the Boston Marathon bombers.
“I think the police did an amazing job in a city of 8.8 million people with all the square mileage here and different locations and different ways of moving around,” Mr. Adams said.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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