Mayor vows turnaround after another night of subway violence with multiple slashings
LOWER MANHATTAN (WABC) -- Mayor Bill de Blasio is vowing a turnaround after yet another night of violence in the New York City subway system.
In one incident, a man was slashed by another during a dispute in the Fulton Street station in Lower Manhattan.
The victim and suspect, who are both apparently homeless, got into an argument inside the station just before 5:30 a.m.
The victim was slashed in the left abdomen and left arm and was taken to Bellevue Hospital with a non-life threatening injury.
The suspect ran away on the southbound platform, but police say they know who he is even though no arrest has yet been made.
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In another incident, a 54-year-old Brooklyn woman was slashed while on a platform inside the 14th Street-Union Square station just after 10 p.m. Wednesday.
Authorities say 22-yearold Joshua Nazario came up from behind and stabbed her multiple times in chest and shoulder area.
She was taken to Bellevue Hospital with non-life threatening injuries while Nazario was arrested and charged with four counts of assault and criminal possession of a weapon.
A knife was recovered at the scene.
Separately, a man who showed up at a Brooklyn hospital with a cut to his face said he got injured during a fight inside the Fulton Street subway station Wednesday night.
And in yet another incident, the NYPD released video of a 44-year old man being stabbed in the neck during a dispute at Union Square subway station.
The victim turned out to have been paroled last year for a hate crime attack on a Jewish woman and her mother.
"We are going to turn this around," de Blasio said Thursday. "The most important thing to say, I said the other day, recovery equals public safety, public safety equals recovery. The recovery, no one is missing, everyone is seeing it. More and more jobs, activity, people in the subways. That alone, and the public safety professionals say it, the more people go in subway, the safer it is."
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He stressed vaccines being the pathway to brining back the economy and public safety.
"Bring back the jobs, bring back the tourism, that's going to have its own positive impact," he said. "But we've got to keep getting it right with public safety. That's why we have the largest NYPD force in the subways in over 25 years. That will have more and more impact over time, but it's all the other things too. Kaeeping the bond between police and community."
De Blasio also said steps are being taken to mitigate homelessness in the public transit system.
"The outreach efforts have been growing in the subway, and the facts are now in," he said. "It has been working. People are being convinced to leave the subways, go into the shelter. That changes the situation. We announced just weeks ago, the new mental health intervention teams, the mobile health teams, can go where ever there is a need. All of these things work. We have to do more and more and keep applying them consistently. I'm absolutely convinced this is the path. Every one of these strategies work. We've seen it before, we know it works. It's about applying them consistently, and it's also a person by person thing. If it's a case of a person with a mental health challenge, we have to find that person and find them the help they need."
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