NEW YORK (AP) — A 15-year-old boy was fatally shot on a New York subway prepare Friday after a dispute between two teams of individuals escalated into violence.
It was the eighth killing in New York’s subway system this 12 months, at a time when a gradual enhance in ridership after a steep decline through the COVID-19 pandemic has been hampered by riders’ security considerations.
In accordance with police, who didn’t establish the sufferer, {the teenager} was in one of many teams that acquired into an argument on an A prepare in Queens shortly earlier than 4 p.m.
Because the prepare neared the road’s ultimate cease in Far Rockaway, close to JFK Airport, somebody fired one shot, hanging the boy within the chest. A passenger helped him off the prepare when it reached the station. Police and emergency personnel took him to a close-by hospital, the place he was pronounced useless.
Police have been reviewing safety digital camera footage from the station and the encompassing space. They didn’t say whether or not they had recognized any suspects or a extra particular motivation for the capturing.
Regardless of the deployment of greater than 1,000 extra cops within the system because the pandemic started, a survey launched final month by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority discovered 70% of riders felt there have been too few officers within the system. Barely greater than 50% stated they felt secure or very secure on trains or in stations.
“We clearly have work to do,” New York Metropolis Transit President Richard Davey stated Friday. “We’ve acquired to cease this.”
NYPD Chief of Transit Jason Wilcox stated arrests have been made in all seven of the earlier killings this 12 months.
Final month, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul introduced the MTA would put cameras on all of its almost 6,400 subway automobiles to rebuild riders’ religion within the system’s security. The undertaking is anticipated to take three years to finish.
New York Metropolis’s subway system already has greater than 10,000 current safety cameras in its 472 stations.