Hundreds of other police officers flooded the New York subway system to protect bandits in the midst of an increase in violent crimes in transit – as Governor Andrew Cuomo says it is up to Big Apple officials to “find this out.”
New York Police Department traffic chief Kathleen O’Reilly announced on Tuesday that the department would send more than 100 additional police officers than previously planned, with a total of 644 police officers being assigned to the subway system amid security concerns after a series of terrifying attacks, officials said.
“We did this through overtime, deploying police officers normally assigned to administrative tasks and relocating other non-traffic officers,” she said during a news conference on Tuesday morning, according to the New York Post.
Police officers said earlier this week that they would move an additional 500 police officers to the subway system. But transit chiefs argued that it was not enough and asked for another 1,000.
On Sunday, the NYPD arrested Rigoberto Lopez, 21, and charged him with three counts of murder and two of attempted murder for his alleged cutting spree along the subway line on Train A on Friday to Saturday.
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Lopez – nicknamed “A-Train Ripper” by the New York Post – is accused of fatally stabbing a man and a woman and injuring two other bandits in just a few hours.
According to police, a man’s lifeless body was discovered in a subway car on Friday night in Queens, with fatal knife wounds to his torso and neck. Approximately two hours later, Claudine Roberts, 44, was also found dead stabbed in a train car in Manhattan.
Lopez reportedly carried out two other non-fatal attacks on adult men at Manhattan subway stations, and police believe that all the victims were homeless.
Subsequently, investigators recovered the alleged murder weapon and Lopez confessed to the crimes, a criminal complaint states. On Monday, a judge ordered him to be detained without bail.
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“For the victims, for the victims’ families, we are 100% committed to obtaining justice … to end the families of this terrible incident,” New York Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said during an earlier news conference.
During an appearance on Spectrum NY1 on Tuesday, before O’Reilly’s announcement, Shea said the NYPD has registered 62 criminal assaults in transit so far this year.
He said the department would also ask for help from its partners to combat the problems.
On Monday, when Governor Cuomo was asked about pressure from the MTA to send 1,000 more police officers to the transit system amid requests from more mental health professionals, the Democratic governor said he believed people needed “more public safety in the subway system. “
“I believe that you need better security, public security in the city in general. I believe that you need better public safety in cities, on a large scale, in general, ”he continued during a news conference.
Police patrol the A-line train bound for Inwood after New York police sent 500 more police officers to the subway system after deadly attacks on Saturday, February 13, 2021, in New York. (AP Photo / Bebeto Matthews)
He referred to the city of Rochester, in upstate New York, where a recent video shows a 9-year-old girl who was sprayed with pepper spray by the police. He also mentioned Buffalo – also in the interior of the state – where the police “dropped a protester on the ground,” he said, probably referring to the June 2020 incident in which the police were accused of pushing an elderly man onto the sidewalk during a manifestation.
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“All I’m saying to New York City is that you find out. You find out. You have tension in the community that they don’t trust the police in. You have tension in the New York Police Department, where they feel they can’t do your job, “he said. “This is not going to work until you reconcile your relationship, and it has to be reconciled.”
A NYPD spokesman did not respond to Fox News’ requests for comment.
Danielle Wallace and Fox News’ The Associated Press contributed to this report.