A man fired a gun at the Wall Street 4/5 station yesterday afternoon, injuring no one except subway tiles of the "Wall Street" sign and seriously freaking out everyone else. The Post says that the man, who was muttering to himself as he paced in the train car, confronted another passenger, who then said something like "What are you looking at?" When the two men got off at the Wall Street stop, the shooter took at his gun and fired at the other person; the Daily News reports that the man was yelling, "I can't wait to leave this country in three days!" The police think the man was mentally disturbed; Gothamist, without any formal medical or investigative training, would venture to agree and we think there's a lesson in this - try to keep to yourself on the subway. Point out directions, sure, but maybe the subway (or anywhere else) isn't the greatest place to get into a pissing match. The shooter remains at large.
The NY Times spoke to Gene Russianoff of the Straphanger Campaign, who said, "Is something going on here? My instinct says no, but I can understand the fears of New Yorkers when there is a rash of episodes in our collective backyard." Or collective basement, as it were. The Times details some of the NYPD's subway tactics (more officers stationed, randomly stopping by stations), but Gothamist wants to know if this is will spur more surveillance cameras in stations. The Post has the latest subway crime statistics from the NYPD, which are still down in violent crimes but high in things like pickpocketing.
More about the Wall Street station from Gothamist's favorite subway resource, NYCsubway.org.
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makes me sort of glad that i didn't confront the guy who was muttering things like "goddamn jew!" to me on the 1/9 last week. we were the only people on the train, though, and he really got my goat.
The NYTimes article points out that, oddly, as crime is at a low point, these 5 recent events (the model, the robber, the revenge killing, the woman falling on the tracks, and now this) have happened at 5 of the most heavily traveled stations in the city. And there's something like 468 stations. (out of memory - fact checking is for losers. ha!)
Let's give the nutcases in New York some credit, though... they're not all doing their thing on the subway. At least two (or more) people have jumped to their deaths out of Midtown buildings in the past week, and then there's that guy who offed himself on the Brooklyn Bridge. Plenty of crime going on in the outer boroughs too, but apparently those stories won't sell copies of the News and the Post.
(Give the Times some credit... based on it's placement on the website, I don't think this story was above-the-fold on the print version)
For what it's worth, I think I've seen an actual "pissing match" on the subway. I'm not quite sure what the rules were, but I think one of the requirements was you had to drink a lot beforehand.
I passed the bullet cracked subway tiles at Wall Street Station this morning on my way to work. The MTA has already marked the spot for repair in Transit Heiroglyphic Markup Language.
why do you give us subway advice like you're our mother or something? hello, patronizing?
The other alternative is to act like a crazy person yourself - no one ever bothers them. Just go buy an army surplus jacket and walk around saying "The devil ate my dictionary! The devil ATE MY DICTIONARY!"
I saw a dead guy on the 6 train around 1990 - everybody was stepping over him, and then some stupid do-gooder NYU students checked his pulse and alerted the conductor. We all had to exit the train at Union Square until the coroner got there to remove the body. Hello? Why stop the train? I'm willing to bet the decendent was in much less of a hurry to get someplace than everybody who had to get off the train.
i think the guy thought his rival was an up and coming model/actor and was just trying to help his career.
Jake,
You have to throw down in that situation. It's like Thunderdome: Two Men Enter, One Man Leaves!