News/Commentary

Amid surging crime in NYC, subway knife arrests soar by more than 60 percent

June 17, 2023 | | Print Article

The surging crime in New York City has yet to relent and as efforts to ensure the safety of subway riders have increased, the number of knife-related arrests has soared by more than 60 percent.

In the roughly year and a half since Mayor Eric Adams (D) took office and claimed that danger on the subway was only a “perception of fear,” efforts to combat crime, and violent crime in particular, have been far from successful. According to the latest figures from the NYPD Transit Bureau, this year has already seen no fewer than 572 arrests that included possession of a blade.

Over the same span of time last year, there were only 358 arrests with a blade on the subway where it is strictly prohibited to carry any “Weapons, dangerous instruments, or any other items intended for use as a weapon…”

In fact, New York City outlaws carrying any knife in public, concealed or otherwise, that has a blade longer than four inches, but in the past four years related arrests have increased by 126 percent.

Last month, Gideon Moncrieffe, 44, incurred an eight-inch gash across his face when he attempted to intervene in a dispute on a southbound C train in Brooklyn.

The month prior, 18-year-old Isaiah Collazo was stabbed to death on a northbound D train after a prank, pulling the emergency brake, enraged Mark Smith, who as the New York Post reported, had turned himself into the police only to have his charges dismissed because Collazo was treated as the aggressor.

As previously covered, Adams’s efforts to institute a “Subway Safety Plan” were quickly met with a violent weekend where at least six were stabbed throughout the transit system over the weekend in Feb. 2022. Hizzoner had proposed an effort to address mental illness and homelessness that as yet did not tackle the failings of prosecutors to hold violent offenders accountable.

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In addition to the violence throughout the subway, headline stories have seen other knife-related crimes as just this week a 34-year-old mother was stabbed after her baby was threatened. That violent attack took place only days after a homeless man was suspected of stabbing a man to death after the two were witnessed engaged in a brawl in the middle of the street around 8 a.m.

Despite the evident violence, NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell laid claim to victory in policing as she announced her resignation this week. “For the past year and a half, I have had the privilege of serving as your police commissioner. I sincerely thank Mayor Adams for the opportunity to lead the nation’s largest and most storied police department, and be a part of an administration where making our city safer is the top priority.”

“Please continue to have faith in the work of the NYPD that ensures the fairest, most effective, and most compassionate policing is delivered,” she noted in the lengthy message, demonstrating the exact misguided priorities that were putting New Yorkers at risk.

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Kevin Haggerty
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