Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, rates of delinquency and extreme poverty have increased in New York City, and in particular in the metro, without however reaching the levels of the 1980s-90s.
Elected in November on a crime-fighting platform, the Democratic but center-right mayor Eric Adams, an African-American former police officer, announced that he had instructed the police force and social workers of the municipality to evict anyone would take refuge in train carriages, in corridors or on platforms.
“The network is not made to house, but to transport” people, he hammered during a press briefing.
The councilor, who took office on January 1 and had to respond to a succession of assaults and murders by firearm also promised that the New York police (NYPD) would crack down on smokers and drug addicts on the subway .
The platforms and trains of the New York subway – with aging infrastructure – have been frequented since the pandemic by a number of homeless people who can annoy travelers more or less aggressively, according to municipal authorities.
Measures are planned, according to Mr Adams, so that social workers and police can refer homeless people to shelters or hospitals.
New York State Governor Kathy Hochul said alongside her that she would demand the creation of reception centers and 500 additional beds in a megalopolis of nine million inhabitants with deep socio-economic inequalities.
According to the NYPD, there were 488 homicides in 2021 in the city, up slightly from the sharp increase in 2020 (468 homicides compared to 319 in 2019). Violent crimes have increased by 25% in the subway between 2019 and 2021. But all crimes in the subway represent only 2% of all crimes committed in the gigantic city with five districts (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, Staten Island).
In January, Michelle Go, a 40-year-old Asian American, died after being pushed down a subway track by a homeless man with a psychiatric disorder as a train pulled into the Times Square station. beating heart of upscale Manhattan.
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