A homeless man was arrested on Sunday on charges of stabbing four people sleeping on the subway, killing two of them, during a violent wave that warned of safety in the public transport system.
Rigoberto Lopez, 21, was arrested on charges of murder and attempted murder, police said. Authorities said he ambushed homeless people while they slept on the subway on Friday and Saturday, saying to one of the victims, “I’m going to kill you”.
Lopez’s last known address is a hotel in Gowanus, Brooklyn, used by the city to house homeless people. Police arrested him on Saturday night in Upper Manhattan.
It was not clear whether he had been taken directly to court to be formally charged or whether he would undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
The victims who died were a man who was found in Far Rockaway, Queens, and a 44-year-old woman found dead in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. Two men, aged 43 to 67, were also injured in separate attacks.
After the stabbings, the Police Department said it would send 500 more police officers to patrol the subways, a move criticized by activists who say the police are ill-equipped to deal with homeless or mentally ill people.
The violence unfolded days after the traffic authorities warned of violence in the subway when testifying before the transportation committee of the City Council. The hearing came after five people were pushed onto the train tracks this year.
Sarah Feinberg, chairman of the New York City Transit Authority, said the system has become the “ground zero” for the city’s mental health crisis and added that authorities need more mental health and police resources to improve security. .
“We asked for help and continue to need it,” she said.
A group of elected officials planned on Sunday to call the police to ensure that police officers patrolling the subways are trained to deal with people in mental distress and to demand that the city also send a small army of social workers.
“They should be more efficient in addressing the problem of subway violence,” said councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, a Democrat from Manhattan and chairman of the transportation committee.