National Guard Troops Deployed to NYC Subways

Facts

• New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday announced plans to deploy 750 members of the National Guard along with 250 law enforcement personnel from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to help protect New York City subways after a rise in violent crime in the transit system.¹
• The National Guard would assist the New York Police Department (NYPD) in performing random checks of passengers' bags at entrances to busy train stations to ensure that weapons like guns and knives aren't brought onto the subway.²
• The move follows a series of recent high-profile violent assaults on NYC commuters and transit workers. Last week, a subway conductor was slashed in the neck, and most recently, a man was pushed onto the tracks at Penn Station.³
• Hochul also seeks to amend legislation to allow courts to ban people convicted of violent crimes on subways and buses from using public transit. She will also direct $20M to expand mental health teams on subways to help people access appropriate facilities.⁴
• The Metropolitan Transportation Authority said that the agency has installed thousands of new surveillance cameras in subway trains and stations in addition to the transit system's existing 10K monitoring devices.⁵
• According to NYPD transit officials, the number of arrests in the NYC subway system rose 45% this year, with over 3K arrests made in the first two months of 2024.⁵

Sources: ¹New York Daily News, ²Associated Press, ³KATU, ⁴BNN and ⁵ABC News.

Narratives

• Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by The New York Times. While the recent attacks on the NYC transit system may make it seem like the subway is becoming increasingly dangerous, the governor is ensuring its safety, deploying the National Guard, and proposing comprehensive public safety measures to address criminal activities in NYC's subways.
• Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by Forbes. NYC's subways aren't safe anymore. Three people have been fatally shot, and several others have been violently slashed, stabbed, beaten, and shoved while riding the trains or waiting in the subway station in recent months. Hochul's measures are an eyewash to hide the failure of the existing anti-crime initiatives in the subway.
• Cynical narrative, as provided by Wbur. The policy of deploying National Guard forces does not ultimately enhance public safety nor does it show a failure of current law enforcement services. Instead, it continues a post-9/11 trend of militarization of policing activities across the US. The discourse must refocus on the alarming public acceptance of automatic weapons and omnipresent surveillance cameras in our everyday lives.

Predictions