What's being done to combat rise in stabbings in New York City?
After a recent uptick in stabbings in New York City, officials are crafting strategies to improve public safety, while simultaneously assuring residents that the incidents are isolated and not part of a broader pattern.
The number of knife attacks in the city has climbed by 15 percent in the past year, according to the New York Police Department.聽The jump was highlighted after a young woman in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, was attacked while riding the 3 train on Tuesday night. Her attacker has not yet been caught, but the suspects involved in two previous unrelated incidents have been apprehended.
Despite the spike in stabbings, New York officials聽warn against聽labeling it as a trend.
"These are individual incidents," Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters during a press conference on Wednesday.聽""
That assertion echoes comments made last week by Commissioner William Bratton.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 know if they鈥檙e copycat or not,鈥� Commissioner Bratton said. 鈥� when we make the arrest and get into what was behind it. As I鈥檝e indicated, sometimes they鈥檙e emotionally disturbed persons. So their rationale is beyond rationalization.鈥�
The attacks have not been isolated to one particular borough or neighborhood.
In order to continue combating crime, and tackle the problem of stabbings in particular, the NYPD is interested in introducing a plan to the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) that would ban 鈥渃areer criminals鈥� from riding the subway.
That proposal would require political maneuvering to establish. However, the department has more immediate plans to start waking sleeping passengers and remind them about being alert. About half of all crimes committed on the subway target sleeping passengers, Gothamist.com reported.
Some are worried that an initiative to shake passengers awake will聽unfairly target聽straphangers of color and create even more negative interactions with the police.
鈥�,鈥� a subway vendor told the New York Daily News. 鈥淚t鈥檚 going to go from 鈥榃ake up鈥� to 鈥楥an I see some ID?鈥� to 鈥榃ould you please come off the train.鈥� It starts as a wake up and ends with harassment.鈥�
Of the 37 assaults that occurred in the subway in January, six were slashings and four were stabbings, compared to three slashings and two stabbings during the same period in the year prior. However, violent crime has taken a major plunge across the five boroughs: killings and shootings have declined by 45 and 33 percent, respectively,聽Commissioner Bratton聽聽on Wednesday.
