New York, Oct 22 (EFE).- New York will increase the presence of city police and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority as well as surveillance cameras in the cars of the subway system, where nine homicides have occurred this year, Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams announced.
This effort will mean that 1,200 overtime shifts will be added each day and that police officers will be at more than 300 subway stations during rush hours, including the busiest Grand Central, Penn Station or Sutphin-Archer, frequented by those who go or come from John F. Kennedy International Airport.
The initiative to deal with incidents of violence on the subway, which also includes a significant investment of the state’s emergency public funds, will also require train conductors to announce to passengers when they enter a station where police are present.
At a joint press conference at the popular Grand Central Station they also announced that they will increase aid in psychiatric centers to care for homeless people living on the streets and in the city’s subways, some of whom have assaulted and murdered to train users.
Adams and Hochul also pledged to explore strengthening laws that provide assistance to those with serious mental illness.
“This effort will help with two things that New Yorkers desperately want: adding hundreds of officers who will be strategically deployed on our trains and helping those with serious mental illness,” said Adams, who since taking office last January he has been dealing with gun violence and in the subway, the country’s largest transportation system.
“The bottom line is that passengers will see more officers in the system, as will those who are thinking of breaking the law. On behalf of all New Yorkers, we are grateful for this state investment that will make our subways safer,” he stated.
Hochul stressed for his part that “whatever is necessary” will be done to make subways safer for passengers and that this initiative announced today will also help homeless people get the support they need.
