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New York City Mayor Eric Adams said he was stunned by how bad Big Apple subway riders had it until he rode the subway himself last week and realized how poorly cops were being used to crack down on crime underground.
As subway crime continues to spike – rising nearly 40 percent from the first half of last year – Adams, in an exclusive interview with the New York Post, said he patrolled the transit system himself late at night for three hours and didn’t care for what he saw.
‘Let me tell you something: When I started looking into this, I was shocked at how bad this place is,’ Adams told the Post.
Days before the mayor touted his awakening on the hazards of subway travel, a video emerged of at least six NYPD officers arresting a busker John Ajilo, a saxophone player with the catch phrase ‘Dancing is Happiness.’
‘I was shut down, handcuffed and taken to the police station for performing in the same spot 34th Herald Square I have been performing [in] on and off for about five years,’ he said on his GoFundMe page that has already collected nearly $30,000.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams rode the New York City subway system last week for three-plus hours and was shocked at what he saw
He said he first knew he had to do something about subway crime about three weeks in office.
‘It was probably, the third — third or fourth week in January. I spent a lot of time in the office,’ he said. ‘And I started peeling back layers and what it started to unveil to me is how we just had this good shell, but underneath — it’s bad.’
The New York City subway is run by the New York City Transit Authority, which falls under the state Metropolitan Transportation Authority, controlled by the chairman, Janno Lieber, who is appointed by the Gov. Kathy Hochul and confirmed by the state Senate.
The mayor appoints several members of the MTA board, but has little control over the operation and maintenance of the system.
Ridership on the subway is just under 60 percent of what it was pre-pandemic, with roughly 3.4 million daily commuters using the system.
Frank Abrokwa smeared human faces on the commuter’s face and back, as seen in the video
The city’s employment rate and overall economy took a major hit after Covid-19 struck and has been slow to recover, especially in the face of the work-from-home revolution and the Great Resignation.
Adams does, however, control the New York City Police Department and said he was dismayed to see its talents and resourced being squandered by mismanagement.
“We have not utilized this amazing agency and all our skills,’ he told the Post.
Adams has been on a campaign to clean up the system and reduce crime in stations since March, after admitting New Yorkers ‘don’t feel safe’ riding the trains.
Andrew Abdullah, 25, (left) is accused of fatally shooting Goldman Sachs employee Daniel Enriquez, 48, in broad daylight at the Canal Street station during an unprovoked attack last month
Enriquez was on his way to have brunch with his brother, as he did every Sunday, when he was killed
He confessed he agrees.
‘I don’t feel that way when I take the train,’ he said.
Adams told the newspaper that he took it upon himself to micromanage the way cops address transit crime and even created a Google Doc to record homeless encampments at subway stations.
He wants officers on patrol to record where they’re seeing people sleeping in the system so that the city’s Department of Homeless Services could try to get them into shelters.
During his underground patrol recently, he spotted an encampment and noticed there was no corresponding record of it in his shared document.
At least 29 people people were injured in the attack, but no casualties have been reported. Police said 10 people were struck directly by gunfire, five of them hospitalized in a critical but stable condition, while 13 others suffered respiratory distress or were otherwise injured in the crush of frantic passengers fleeing the smoke-filled subway car. Pictured: Passengers lay injured on the subway platform
Frank James (pictured) was charged with a federal terrorism offense over claims he opened fire on a packed subway train in Brooklyn in April, shooting 10 and injuring 23
‘I go to my phone, look at the document – this encampment is not in there,’ he said.
When he asked cops on patrol why they hadn’t logged it in they told him, ‘We weren’t told we were supposed to log it in,’ he said.
‘What it showed was that we were not inspecting the system,’ Adams told the Post.
He said it took him going to the precinct commander before his system started being used by police.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams said cops were slow to implement his system of reporting and sharing the locations of homeless encampments in the subway system
A homeless encampment at the First Ave. station on the L line identified by subway crews last month. Hundreds of homeless people have been camping out in subway tunnels and stations
The MTA described ‘encampments’ as ‘lying down in a sleeping bag or stretch out,’ as the person can be seen doing in Fulton Street station in Manhattan last month
Many of the homeless find sanctuary in the subway stations and trains in the winter months
‘It was three or four week after… that we really started to see how to operate as a team to really accomplish the mission,’ he said.
Many of the city’s straphangers may not agree that the mission has been accomplished.
Transit crime jumped 17 percent last week compared to the same week last year. It’s climbed 38.7 percent in the first six months of 2022 compared to the first half of last year.
Police said Jeffers has a vast criminal history that stretches back to 2007 and includes 47 prior arrests, charges of prostitution, grand larceny, public lewdness, theft of service and drug possession
The victim, an Asian man, suffered head injuries in the hammer attack at 14th St Station in New York City. He is seen in an ambulance
Since Adams took office, commuters have seen hatchet attacks, bomb explosions, poop smearing assailants, hammer muggers, subway pushers, hate crimes and other atrocities.
In April, deranged gunman Frank James, 62, set off smoke bombs on a crowded rush-hour R train in Sunset Park Brooklyn then opened fire on passengers, wounding 10 people.
The next month, Daniel Enriquez, 43, who worked at Goldman Sachs, was murdered at random, shot in the chest as he rode the Q train to Sunday brunch. His accused assailant, Andrew Abdullah, 25, was a career criminal and reported gang member.
Unprovoked, he grabs and then throws the 52-year-old woman directly onto the subway tracks
The suspect is seen approaching the victim from behind on the platform at Jackson Avenue station, moments before he throws her onto the tracks
On June 7, surveillance video on a Bronx subway platform captured a man grab a 52-year-old woman and shove her onto the tracks, breaking her collarbone.
Another woman was attacked by Frank Abrokwa, 27, who felt stung by that his romantic advances were rejected so he defecated in a bag and then smeared it on the face and head of the female commuter.
Crimes against Asians on the subway has also created the perception that it’s not a safe way to travel.
In the third week in January, Deloitte analyst Michelle Go was shoved to her death under an R train in the Times Square subway station by mentally ill homeless man Martial Simon, 61.
In March, an Asian man was attacked with a hammer allegedly by Christian Jeffers, 48, in what appears to be an unprovoked attack. Jeffers has 47 prior arrests that stretch back to 2007.
Cell phone video captured men on a Brooklyn subway platform taking turns slapping an Asian man in the face as another man held his arms behind his back.
‘I was targeted and held against my will, was put in a full nelson and assaulted by two different guys,’ he told the MailOnline. ‘I didn’t even know what the hell was going on. And there was a crowd watching and nobody was helping.’
New York City Department of Health researcher Nina Rothschild, 58, was attacked with a hammer on the stairs of a Forest Hills, Queens subway station.
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