Subway Notes

- Subway crime is down, in spite of recent media coverage of shootings. The Daily News says the subway is averaging "three robberies a day and fewer than one assault a day" for the first five months of the year, which is down from previous years (subway crime is down 81% since 1990). But grand larceny crimes, like pickpocketing, are up 10%. So watch your wallets, purses, bags, and European carry-alls.
- A man who was walking between subway cars fell to his death yesterday afternoon while on a R train in Brooklyn. The train was pulling out of the Court Street station when the 67 year-old passenger was killed. Power was shut down to remove his body, which ensnared the R train service in both directions for 2 hours; police have ruled his death as accidental.
- Kevin Harrington, a Sikh train operator of 20 years who had been reassigned to a less public position (at the train yards) because he was told his turban violated MTA uniform rules, was given back his job operating trains. The MTA reversed their decision after the media attention at the seeming injustice of it all and will be reviewing the uniform code this year. A few years ago, witnesses thought a Sikh MTA employee wearing a turban was a terrorist, causing the police to shut down part of the 4, 5, 6, and there was a case earlier this year, where the NYPD made a Sikh resign because of his turban - a judge asked the City Commission on Human Rights to reinstate him.