Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Thursday that the city’s subway system is not a “homeless shelter” while announcing that she would direct cops to address quality of life issues underground.
The remarks came during Jan. 30’s State of the NYPD address in Midtown, during which Tisch outlined a three-point plan to address disorder in the bowels of the city and reassure riders.
Tisch began by reiterating that she is taking transit cops away from posts on mezzanines and by turnstiles and redirecting them to the platforms and subway cars where she says 78% of transit crime takes place. She also noted that some 200 cops surged to the most problematic train stations, citing a 36% drop in subway crime so far in January.
“But people still don’t feel safe,” she remarked.
Despite the statistics, a slew of high-profile crimes in the subway system rocked the city to its core.
On Dec. 22, 2024, Guatemala migrant Sebastian Zapeta-Calil allegedly set Debrina Kawam on fire as she slept aboard a Coney Island F train, burning her to death, which was caught on horrific video.
Nine days later, on Dec. 31, Joe Lynskey was shoved in front of an oncoming 1 train on 18th Street and 7th Avenue station, allegedly by Kamel Hawkins. Nineteen-year-old Andrew Pashinin was arrested on Jan. 21 for a non-fatal Brooklyn subway shove of a 33-year-old man in Brooklyn following an argument.
This led to an overnight surge that has placed two cops on every nightly subway train in the city, which went into full effect on Monday. While some are concerned about losing cops on other patrols to this new redeployment, Tisch said that many of the cops being put on the trains came from previously working desk jobs.
The third part of the new initiative will now see a renewed focus of cops addressing quality of life issues, most notably the likes of drinking and smoking as well as taking up more than one seat by laying outstretched, which has become more common as the city’s most vulnerable such as homeless and migrants have retreated into the subway.
“We want this message to be very clear: Our officers will not simply walk by someone who is violating the law and disrupting passengers. We are going to correct the condition,” Tisch said. “Our subway trains and platforms are not homeless shelters, they are not psychiatric hospitals. And as a city, we have a moral duty to provide services to people who need them.”
In order to address those suffering from homelessness and mental health issues, Tisch also revealed that new incoming cops will be given new training to better deal with emotionally disturbed individuals and to de-escalate potentially deadly situations.
“The NYPD responds to about 180,000 jobs involving a person in mental distress every year, and the goal is to teach our officers to better understand, identify, and de-escalate these high-stakes situations. Our first priority is to protect life, and to put it bluntly, our cops need better tactics,” Tisch said. ”We’re starting to roll it out this year, beginning with our newest recruit class.”
The New York City Independent Budget Office reports that this new subway policing plan’s price tag will be contingent upon overtime practices, which means the new initiative could range between $61 million to $159 million.
With a potential cost of $159 million, it would already be well over budget by $5 million from Gov. Kathy Hochul’s original estimate that the state and city would cover.
