NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – The city will deploy another 200 NYPD officers to patrol the subway system, as transit crime has dropped but high-profile crimes have unnerved riders, officials said Monday.
During a press conference with Mayor Eric Adams, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the officers will be assigned to patrol trains and station platforms.
“This month we will roll out substantial additional improvements to our transit deployments to be even more responsive to the terrifying acts of random violence we’ve seen recently,” Tisch said.
The commissioner said she directed 200 more officers to patrol trains as well as the platforms at the 50 highest crime stations in the city.
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced last month that she was sending another 250 National Guard members into the subway to join 750 members already deployed there, along with hundreds of additional state police and MTA police officers as part of a task force known as "Empire Shield."
End-of-year police data released Monday shows subway crime dropped 5.4% from December 2023 to December 2024. Meanwhile, major crimes—including murder, rape and robbery—dropped 2.9% citywide during that period.
While overall transit crime dropped, police data compiled by policy research group Vital City at Columbia Law School shows felony assaults in the subway reached 573 in 2024—the most since at least 1997, Bloomberg reported. There were also 10 murders in the subway, which is double the number from the prior year.
Several gruesome, unprovoked subway attacks in particular have made national headlines in recent weeks.
Among them was a 61-year-old woman who was burned alive on a Coney Island F train on Dec. 22. And on Dec. 31, a 45-year-old man was pushed into the path of a 1 train at the 18th Street station in Chelsea. Last weekend, a homeless man with dozens of prior arrests was busted for allegedly stabbing riders unprovoked in the subway in Manhattan.
Adams said the progress against crime has been overshadowed by the high-profile attacks. “Nothing is more horrific than watching a person burned to death on our subway system,” he said.
“The subways will always be a bellwether for the perception of public safety in New York City,” Tisch said. “Declining crime numbers are significant, but we still must do more because people don't feel safe in our subways.”