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With more public outrage over the 2-3AM subway rape at a G train station in Long Island City, due to NYC Transit's rules that keep transit clerks inside token booths and the empty police booth in the station, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said there just aren't enough police officers to man every single subway station. Newsday pointed out that even though there are 32 police booths in various stations (think the Bedford L stop), "only 15 of the booths are staffed at any given time." Kelly explained:
We do rotate them, rotate officers covering those booths, just as we rotate coverage under our [Operation] Atlas program.We don't cover all of our Atlas posts. We cover them on a daily, irregular basis you might say. There is nothing unusual about the fact that a particular booth wasn't covered at a particular time. We'd like to have booths in every station to give us the option to put the personnel there, but we could never possibly have enough officers to have a booth at every station."Well, of course not, but we hope that the MTA and NYC Transit are figuring out better safety measures! Which reminds Gothamist - Albany should cough up the money the MTA needs and the city should reevaluate giving money to the MTA - there's no way the MTA alone can figure out how to improve rider safety when it's struggling for average service. Police sources told Newsday that if the booth were manned, it's possible the attack could have been recorded on a closed-circuit monitor. Gothamist wonders if this incident will spur even more subway stations - and politicans to call for them - to be wired with video cameras.
The NY Post reunited a photographer who was attacked and thrown onto the tracks at the Clinton-Washington A station in Fort Greene last month with the transit worker who helped her out; police suspect that her attacker is the same man who raped the woman at the 21st Street G stop. The photographer was on her way back to the Lower East Side at 3:30AM when a young man borrowed a pen from her. When he approached her again as he was masturbating, she tried to walk away but he threatened her with a box cutter and choked her until she blacked out, later finding herself on the train tracks.
Photograph from Newsday
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Here's what I want to know as someone who uses the bus system in Brooklyn...why doesn't the MTA bust all the people who constantly get ON the bus via the back door...this is the equivalent of turnstile jumping and I'm insensed everytime I get off using that door as someone pushes on without the driver noticing. That seems like a lot of money that could be rounded up if this was fixed....put a turnstile right there as you exist so they have no hope of getting on. I'm just sick of it, as I cough up my fare to ride each time. Or does this not happen in Manhattan, rendering my point moot?
Every time I've seen someone attempt this on the B38 bus, the driver gets on the PA and chastises him, saying it's illegal, and that he/she must use the front doors. Never seen someone get away with it, even on a packed bus.
I use the B46, and unfortunately, it happens most of the time, especially at the Fulton Street and Eastern Parkway stops.
Still no indication from the MTA or the transit workers union buearocrats that they have any culpubility for this crime despite their rules that require a token clerk to remain locked in their booth as a person is assaulted under their nose.
The paranoid NYCLU has come out strongly against security cams in subway stations as they have some imaginary fears of civil liberties infringement.
What ever happened to the simple idea of more cops walking the beat, randomly walking around the subway system.
how about making the MTA board elected instead of appointed? then every time the MTA fucks up, someone could be held accountable to the public (instead of no one)
I just noticed a camera just above the inter-train transfer door on the A train last night. Not really worried too mcuh about anyone at the MTA doing anything with those, since I've seen police officers and mta workers alike ignore suspicious riders and or ornry riders.
Of course there aren't enough police to deter subway rapings; they're way too busy booking Mondo Kim's employees for bootleg sales.