STANDING ON A NY SUBWAY PLATFORM MAY BE HARMFUL TO YOUR HEALTH

Must a subway shoving be fatal before NY leaders move to stop them? 

 

Post Editorial Board

 

New York Post

October 5. 2021

 

 

Anthonia Egegbara was arrested and charged with attempted murder for allegedly pushing a woman into an oncoming train in Times Square

 

New video of a recent subway shoving prompts the question: Are New York’s leaders waiting for an innocent to get killed before they do something about this threat?

It took the killing of Kendra Webdale to get the state Assembly to pass Kendra’s Law, allowing for mandatory treatment of some dangerously unhinged New Yorkers. But efforts to strengthen that law remain in limbo, while Mayor Bill de Blasio refuses to adjust his own policies.

In the latest attack, a deranged stranger shoved a woman into the side of a No. 3 train arriving in Times Square. The victim sustained severe injuries to her face and legs. Yet Anthonia Egegbara, ID’d as the attacker, has a rap sheet stretching back a decade, including recent charges for fare evasion, scratching a woman’s face in a dispute and snatching a cellphone from someone before fleeing aboard a train. Now add attempted murder.

This follows a hatchet-wielding maniac’s attack on a man inside a Chase ATM vestibule in August. Later that month, an unprovoked man pushed a 31-year-old woman down a Queens subway staircase. In Brooklyn, an unhinged male threw a woman onto train tracks.

Simply accepting this endless string of random assaults is no way to get tourists or office workers to return, not to mention the threat to all the regular New Yorkers who never left.

At a minimum, de Blasio can divert mental-health money to focus on the city’s estimated 12,000 mentally ill homeless. And crack down on the homeless-outreach workers who seem to simply hang out in the general vicinity of the folks they’re supposed to help.

The late mental-health activist DJ Jaffe estimated that almost 9,000 homeless mentally ill “could be moved off the streets and into supportive housing using the funds budgeted for ThriveNYC,” the $1 billion pet project of First Lady Chirlane McCray that mainly focuses on minor mental illness.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, meanwhile, could push the Legislature to bolster Kendra’s Law to allow for more involuntary commitment of people who’ve become dangers to themselves and others.

Innocent New Yorkers shouldn’t fear random attacks by sickos. It’s simply wrong to let severely mentally ill and clearly dangerous people roam free without medical supervision or medication.

If city and state leaders don’t get serious, they’ll have blood on their hands when some attacker finally puts his victim not in the hospital but in the morgue.

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Almost another fatal subway shove and de Blasio’s answer is call this 800 number

 

By Seth Barron 

 

 

Mayor Bill de Blasio claims police have "succeeded in improving the environment" of subways despite rampant crimes

 

Random mayhem continues to plague the city’s subways. Monday morning, a commuter standing on the 42nd Street uptown platform was shoved face-first into the side of an arriving 1 train, which smashed her nose and bruised her entire body. The victim’s deranged assailant, who has been identified as 29-year-old Anthonia Egegbara, was unknown to her, and video of the incident shows that there was no interaction between the two women to precipitate the attempted murder.

This episode — which was complemented aboveground by a shooting a few hours later — is exactly the nightmare scenario that terrifies subway riders, that defines the national image of New York City to tourists and business travelers, and which must be addressed vigorously and immediately by a responsive and effective municipal leadership if we are ever going to get things humming again.

Unfortunately, we have Mayor de Blasio, whose tepid and irrelevant comments about the subterranean savagery betray his lack of urgency to cure it.

“Well, yesterday was a great, great day for New York City,” he announced at the start of his prepared comments during his Tuesday media appearance, at which he elided any mention of Monday’s attack. When asked about it directly, de Blasio explained, “the Times Square area obviously has been reinforced intensely, there’s huge amount of police presence, and overwhelmingly, of course, that has succeeded in improving the environment there in every way and making it safer.”

Is the mayor high? The Midtown South precinct, which encompasses Times Square, is in the middle of a crime surge. Felony assault is up 144 percent year-to-date, and there have been 11 times as many people shot as last year. Robbery, burglary, and grand larceny are all elevated. Hate crimes, a leading indicator of street barbarism, are up a staggering 833 percent in the “improved environment” of the neighborhood. 

 

NYPD officers patrol the subway platforms at the 42nd St and 7th Ave station after an attempted push on the Uptown 2 train

 

De Blasio continued his fantasy version of our new normal, insisting, “we also surged a huge number of NYPD officers into the subways. We had one of the highest levels of NYPD deployments in the subways in the last two decades . . . We have seen a much-improved situation.” 

Oh, really? Until recently, there were typically one or two murders in the subway annually. Last year we had seven; so far this year we’ve had four. Assaults and other felonies in the transit system are still running well above normal. If there really is a record number of cops in the subway — with ridership still at about 60 percent of pre-pandemic norms — then in what sense is the situation “much improved”?

Last October, following a spate of subway pushings, Mayor de Blasio was asked how his signature ThriveNYC program would address the specific problem of severely mentally ill and dangerous individuals underground. “Thrive is here to cover the whole range of mental health challenges,” the mayor explained impertinently, encouraging everyone with a concern to “pick up that phone and call 8-8-8-NYC-WELL so we can get the help that you need.”

It’s now a year later and de Blasio continues to offer smarmy, canned responses to serious questions about the collapse of public safety in New York. We are undergoing a failure in confidence across the city as people grow accustomed to being frightened of their surroundings. New York City will not come back until order and quality of life are restored to its streets. 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Times Square subway pusher has SEVEN prior arrests - and the last three were assaults on women on public transport: Charged with attempted murder as female victim says 'I have a broken nose and a fractured chin.' (Daily Mail)