NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) -- To turn around the crime problem in the subway, Mayor Eric Adams said everyone needs to do their part, including the police—he’s fed up with what he says are too many officers scrolling through their phones in station mezzanines instead of heading down to the platforms and hopping on trains as he did when he was a transit cop.
“I am disappointed in the deployment of transit police personnel,” Adams said when responding to a question about fare-evasion from 1010 WINS reporter Juliet Papa at a City Hall news conference on Tuesday.
The mayor said too many times he’s gone into subway stations overnight only to find police on their phones near the ticket booths, away from platforms and trains.
In fact, Adams is so perturbed that he urged riders to send him photos of cops who are standing around with their head buried in their phone.
“New Yorkers, if you see that, send me a photo and I will be at that station,” the mayor said.
Adams' comments come as the MTA is putting together a blue-ribbon panel to address the millions of dollars lost to fare-evasion. The MTA board was meeting Wednesday to tackle the same stubborn problems of low ridership and rising crime that have plagued the system during the pandemic.
Adams wants to tackle the issue of fare-evasion by putting more cops into play. He’s talking about it with the NYPD commissioner and chief of transit and is promising a visible difference in subway patrols in the next few weeks.
“We are going to start taking very aggressive actions to make sure police are patrolling our subway system and not patrolling their iPhone,” he said. “And so you are going to see a visible difference in policing in the next couple of weeks to get those officers who are not doing their job to join those officers who are doing their job.”
The Police Benevolent Association, the largest NYPD union, released a statement Wednesday in response to Adams’ remarks, saying phones are a big part of being a police officer these days.
“New York City police officers did not ask for NYPD-issued smartphones – we were ordered to carry and use them,” PBA President Patrick Lynch said in a statement.
“We are now required to document every minute of our tour on these phones,” Lynch continued. “Every form we are required to fill out and every alert we receive comes through the phone. If there’s a problem with cops using the phone on duty, NYPD management should change the policies and go back to pen and paper.”
Related
Related
Related
