NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Mayor Bill de Blasio said the NYPD will be deploying even more officers to patrol the subways in response to a rise in violent crime in the transit system, including a slashing spree on the Lexington Avenue line in Manhattan last week.
An additional 250 officers will be assigned to a special deployment, joining the 2,500-member force in the transit system and another 500 who were brought in weeks ago.
"We're going take officers and put them in the right places in the subways at the right time particularly at peak times," de Blasio said during his daily briefing Monday. "Combining all of these elements, this will now be the largest NYPD transit force in over 25 years."
The mayor said the city is going to do whatever it takes to keep New Yorkers safe and to get them back to the subways to move the recovery forward.
He also criticized the MTA for not filling vacancies in its transit police force.
"We need the MTA to pull their own weight," de Blasio said. "It is easy to criticize. How about simply contributing and helping achieve the mission together?"
The mayor said the MTA approved the hiring of hundreds of new officers 17 months ago, but all of those positions have yet to be filled.
"The MTA needs to step up, they need to hire, they need to fill those vacancies," de Blasio said. "They gotta focus the police force where the riders are. The MTA has a variety of different responsibilities in the city and the suburbs, I respect that. We want everyone to be safe, but the vast majority of the riders are in the subways in the city, the subways are the glue for the entire metropolitan region so we keep contributing but we need the MTA to contribute more as well."
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To sweeten the deal, the mayor said the city will also provide NYPD training to the new MTA officers, at no cost to the transit agency.
"We are focused on public safety and recovery, we're not interested in playing politics, we're not interested in scoring political points or distracting from other problems, we just want to make people safe, bring this city back and we know we can do it," de Blasio said.
The announcement comes as 24/7 subway service resumed for the first time in more than a year.
MTA Chairman Pat Foye has been requesting an additional 600 to 800 police officers in stations or on trains, as well as a substantial increase in mental health resources.
Foye thanked the mayor for the additional officers and said the MTA will add 100 more, but there are some who say more police doesn't really address the problem.
"What we should be having is a conversation about what the problem actually is and how we actually address the problem," said Public Advocate Jumaane Williams who is calling for more mental health workers in the system. "The issue that we've seen in the subway is homelessness. The issue that we see in the subway is mental health services."
There were at least three more subway attacks on Sunday.
Three men attacked a commuter on the 6 train at Bleecker Street, punching his face and stealing his cell phone.
On the F train in Brooklyn, three men robbed a straphanger at gunpoint, taking his phone and cash.
At the 14th Street-Union Square station, a woman punched another in the face.