New York City Mayor Eric Adams said in an interview published Tuesday that he felt “unsafe” riding the city’s subway on his first day in office. His remarks came days after a woman was pushed in front of a moving New York subway train and killed.
In an interview with ABC News, Adams said that on Jan. 1, shortly after he took the oath of office, he dialed 911 to report a fight near the subway station, encountered a yelling passenger, and encountered another passenger sleeping on the train.
“On day one, I took the subway system, I felt unsafe. I saw homeless everywhere. People were yelling on the trains. There was a feeling of disorder. So as we deal with the crime problem, we also have to deal with the fact people feel unsafe," Adams said in the interview.
ABC noted that “even before the killing, his [Adams] administration had announced plans to boost the presence of police officers in the subway and reach out to homeless people riding trains as part of a mission to combat both ‘actual crime’ and ‘the perception of crime.’”
“We’re going to drive down crime and we’re going to make sure New Yorkers feel safe in our subway system, and they don’t feel that way now. I don’t feel that way when I take the train every day or when I’m moving throughout our transportation system," Adams told reporters on Tuesday.
ABC reported that police charged a 61-year-old man, Simon Martial, with second-degree murder for pushing Michelle Alyssa Go off the train platform under Times Square on Jan. 15. Assistant District Attorney Hunter Carrell described the killing as “completely unprovoked.”
"The attack was completely unprovoked, in fact, the victim was just looking down at her phone at the time she was shoved,” Carrell reportedly said.
The New York Times noted that Martial previously served two prison terms for robbing taxi drivers while threatening use of a gun.
Maria Coste-Weber, who witnessed Go’s death, told the Times that she saw Martial “running with both of his hands in front of him, like, tackling.”
“But it was so fast, nobody realized what was going on before it was too late,” Coste-Weber said.