The New York governor, Kathy Hochul, is sending in the national guard to New York City’s subway system in order to counteract what she says is a surge in crime, to the dismay of some city residents and police reform activists.
Hochul said on Wednesday that 750 national guard patrolmen as well as 250 state police and Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) officers will be deployed to patrol the stations and conduct bag checks.
“These brazen heinous attacks on our subway system will not be tolerated,” Hochul told a press conference.
Police accountability advocates decried the announced deployment. Robert Gangi, the founder of the Police Reform Organizing Project (Prop), said the added police presence would further criminalize Black and brown commuters, people who are already policed by NYPD officers.
“This is overkill. This is a waste of resources,” Gangi said to the Guardian.
Others on social media have denounced the plan as unnecessary.
“Seems a bit insane to deploy the national guard to check folks’ bags on the subway,” wrote one user on X. Another commenter called the announcement “dystopian”: “Just random bag checks for public transit customers minding their own business?”
One person posted a picture of his commute, with the caption: “Seriously I take the subway every day with my kid and it’s fine and safe. Does this look like we need bag checkers or national guard???”
The announcement follows several high-profile crimes on the city’s subway in recent weeks. On Tuesday, a 64-year-old man was pushed on to subway tracks at Penn Station, and in February an MTA employee was slashed while working an early morning shift.
But data on whether subway crime is actually increasing is unclear, the New York Times reported, as is whether additional officers are needed on the subway systems given that there are already a record number of NYPD officers patrolling them.
Approximately 3,500 NYPD officers oversee the subway, with New York City spending a record $155m in overtime pay for them in 2023, Gothamist reported.
