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Uniformed officers on train patrols will be the “foundation” of the department’s effort to keep mass transit riders safe, the new head of the NYPD Transit Bureau said Monday.
Speaking to MTA board members on his first day on the job, Transit Chief Jason Wilcox said “high visibility” is key to assuaging rider fears in the aftermath of the tragic subway shove murder of Michelle Go earlier this month.
“The absolute foundation of what we’re going to be pushing out is uniformed train patrols. High visibility,” Wilcox explained to reporters after his presentation. “We want the riders, New Yorkers, people that come here, work here, go to the school here, to see our officers, to feel safer. We’re determined to make that happen.”
“They will be on the trains. They will be on the trains, they will be on the platforms, they will be moving around Saturday night, Monday night, every night, every day,” he said of the NYPD’s presence in the subways. “You will see them. They will be there to protect you. They will be there to make you feel safer, and we are determined in that effort.”
It’s not clear how Wilcox’s plan differs from what Mayor Eric Adams and the NYPD have already promised. His language echoed MTA Chair Janno Lieber, who has frequently highlighted police visibility as a missing piece of the NYPD’s subway crime response.
“We need cops on platforms. We need cops on trains,” Lieber said on Monday. “Those are the places that people are feeling vulnerable, and they are vulnerable.”
The new transit chief most recently served as an assistant chief in the NYPD Detective Bureau, but previously oversaw Manhattan’s transit police from 2006 to 2013.
On Monday, Wilcox noted that the total number of major crimes on mass transit was much lower in 2021 than in 2019, but acknowledged a troubling rise in felony assaults.
“About a third of those involve cutting instruments,” he said. “Obviously that’s something we’re going to be looking very hard at.”
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