Mayor Eric Adams used a brand new TV interview to downplay the rise in violent subway crime — and blamed the information media for making a false “notion” that the scenario underground is uncontrolled.
Adams took his dismissive tone about mayhem within the subways — the place violent crime this yr via August was up 39% in comparison with 2019 — throughout a chat with CNN’s Chris Wallace that was recorded only a day after the town’s ninth train-system murder of the yr occurred in Queens.
“Now we have a mean of lower than six crimes a day on a subway system with 3.5 million riders,” Adams advised Wallace.
“However should you write your story primarily based on a story, then you definitely’re going to have a look at the worst of these six crimes and put it on the entrance pages of your paper on daily basis.”
Hizzoner added: “So, I've to cope with these six crimes a day — felony crimes — and the notion of worry.”
The mayor’s persevering with efforts to downplay crime have left each legal justice specialists and on a regular basis straphangers dismayed.
“I don’t know the place he’s coming from anymore,” mentioned Dorothy Schulz, a professor emerita of regulation and police research at John Jay School of Felony Justice in Manhattan.
“I believe he’s very preoccupied with this unlawful immigrant factor and the tent metropolis and I don’t know whether or not he thinks by saying this he makes folks really feel safer.”
Straphanger Sabryna Davis, who rides the subway to her job as a well being aide in Ozone Park, Queens, mentioned Adams was “coming at it the mistaken method, saying there’s simply six crimes a day and folks shouldn’t fear.”
“That’s only a statistic,” she mentioned. “That’s not taking into consideration the unreported crimes. That’s not taking into consideration the warning indicators — the threats, the loopy seems to be in folks’s eyes.
“The subway is stuffed with ticking time bombs, and simply because six go off immediately, it doesn’t imply 12 aren’t going off tomorrow.”
Even Wallace appeared stunned by Adam’s feedback, and requested the mayor if he actually meant the Huge Apple’s crime downside was “extra notion than actuality.”
“No, it’s a mixture of each,” Adams mentioned, seeming to backtrack a bit.
“However mayor, the New York Metropolis crime statistics are that yr up to now, crime within the subways is up 41% over the identical interval final yr, and severe crime — main felonies — are up much more than that,” Wallace interjected. “That’s not notion. That’s actuality.”
The assertion pressured Adams to concede that “sure, now we have a criminal offense downside that we’re addressing” — earlier than once more bashing the media.
“However a part of that's the notion that on daily basis, these six crimes are being highlighted time and again,” he mentioned.
The mayor’s feedback, first reported Thursday by Mediaite, are a part of an episode of the CNN present “Who’s Speaking to Chris Wallace?” that’s scheduled to be launched Friday on HBO Max.
Schulz, who was the primary feminine captain within the Metro-North Commuter Railroad Police Division, mentioned that the present crime wave within the subway is totally different than crime up to now.
“What individuals are actually fearful of is that this randomness,” she mentioned. “The buildup of those incidents is that individuals are petrified. “Individuals I do know who rode the town for years, I’ve by no means heard so many individuals say they're frightened — and overwhelmingly ladies.”
Leo Pacheco, 24, of Decrease East Facet additionally ripped the mayor’s feedback.
“It sounds fairly tone-deaf,” he advised the Put up at Jamaica station. “Clearly he’s not a subway rider, as a result of I don’t know anybody who thinks the subways are protected. Is it simply our notion? Hell no.”
Sahl Masih, 32, a bus driver from Williamsburg, mentioned Adams is “in denial.”
“Ask anybody who rides the subway if it’s notion. Is what you’re seeing notion or actuality? All these homeless folks on the prepare — are they only notion?” he mentioned. “When the mayor of New York Metropolis can’t come clean with the fact of an issue that even a vacationer can see, it makes you actually marvel why you voted for the man.”
Clement Tucker — whose spouse, Elizabeth Gomes, was badly overwhelmed in an unprovoked assault in a Queens station final month — mentioned she misplaced imaginative and prescient in her proper eye and remained “in danger” of going fully blind. He’s indignant about how the mayor is dealing with subway crime.
“The mayor don’t take the prepare, the mayor don’t stroll… He wants to consider the folks out right here struggling,”
Maritza Gomes, a 28-year-old retail employee, additionally known as BS on Adams remarks.
“Bulls–t, bull–t, bulls–t. Who's he promoting that to? Individuals who don’t take the trains?” she mentioned.
“We're New Yorkers, we're powerful — however that is an excessive amount of. If I'm going out on the weekends, I'm going out in a bunch with my mates. And even in a bunch we nonetheless don’t keep out too late. If it’s too late, we take Uber.”
Lodge employee Juliana Cobos, 25, mentioned Adams “thinks it’s not unhealthy however should you journey on the prepare twice, three, 4 occasions per week you will notice it.”
“The media is telling it as it's — what individuals are going via,” she mentioned.
“It’s harmful and individuals are afraid.”
Elizabeth Habacon, 73, who works as a caregiver, mentioned Adams “ought to come and take the subway and see for himself.”
“Quite a lot of unhealthy individuals are roaming round on a regular basis on the subway, searching for folks to assault,” she mentioned.
Adams’ interview was carried out Tuesday, Metropolis Corridor mentioned, at some point after the killing of Heriberto Quintana, 48, who fell in entrance of an oncoming subway prepare after getting punched within the face on a station platform in Queens.
Carlos Garcia, 50, was charged with manslaughter and assault within the incident, which adopted an argument that allegedly erupted when Quintana unintentionally ran into Garcia and knocked his cellphone to the tracks.
Quintana’s loss of life marked the ninth murder within the subway system this yr.
Regardless of the surge in subway crime, citywide murders had been down 14.8% and shootings had been down 13.6% this yr via Sunday in comparison with the identical interval final yr, in line with NYPD information.
In his interview, Adams rehashed remarks he made Monday, when he blamed the variety of weapons within the Huge Apple for the latest surge in subway slayings, regardless that they’ve solely been utilized in a fraction of the lethal assaults.
Adams first invoked the “notion of worry” within the subways following the Jan. 15 killing of Michelle Go, who was allegedly pushed in entrance of an oncoming prepare within the Instances Sq. station by a mentally unwell homeless man.
“New Yorkers are protected on the subway system,” he mentioned on the time.
However in response to outrage from terrified riders, Adams walked again that assertion, admitting that even he didn’t really feel protected driving the subways.
Metropolis Corridor tried to bat away the criticism late Thursday, issuing an announcement that described the mayor’s place on the difficulty as “very constant.”
“The mayor has been very constant that we have to battle each the fact of crime and the notion of crime — and that’s what you will notice as soon as the complete Chris Wallace interview airs,” mentioned Press Secretary Fabien Levy. “He talks about each.”
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