A 21-year-old man from Brooklyn was arrested on Sunday and charged with connection to a series of stabbings on the New York subway system that left two dead and two injured in a 14-hour period.
The announcement came after the New York Police Department (NYPD) deployed 500 additional police officers on Saturday to patrol above and below the subway system on Saturday in response to the seemingly unprovoked attacks taking place along the train. THE.
A police union has also called for an increase in the number of police to attack the City Council, which is promoting a criminal justice reform package aimed at reducing the NYPD’s footprint.
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Rigoberto Lopez, 21, of Butler Street in Brooklyn, was arrested and charged with two counts of murder and two of attempted murder in connection with the stabbings along line A, a NYPD spokesman confirmed to Fox News on Sunday. .
A person of interest was reportedly taken into custody on West 186th Street and Audubon Avenue in Washington Heights on Saturday night for questioning, the NY Daily News reported.
The first attack took place just before midnight on Friday, when an adult man was pronounced dead after being stabbed in the neck and torso on train A. About two hours later, on Saturday morning, an unconscious woman of 45 years with multiple stabs was transported to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead. The two victims were considered homeless and were found at opposite ends of line A of the train, lying in pools of blood under the subway seat.
A 67-year-old man and a 43-year-old were also stabbed on the A train in the past 24 hours, although their injuries do not appear to pose a threat to life, officials said.
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The police union representing NYPD detectives issued a severe rebuke to the City Council for pushing an agenda to narrow the department’s footprint just a day before the additional 500 police officers are called in to increase patrols on the New York subway system.
“Perhaps Council President Johnson should ask the natives if they want more or less police on the streets and in the subways – especially since the tragic murders on Line A,” tweeted the Detectives’ Endowment Association on Saturday. “There is no doubt that they want to see more policemen. It’s time for politicians to wake up!”
The union shared a local news report that city council president Corey Johnson defended on Thursday a new criminal justice package of 11 projects that partly seeks to end qualified immunity for police officers.
“These are big bills. They would change the footprint of policing in New York City,” Johnson said in an interview with NY1. “This is based on many of the requests for reform that took place last year after the assassination of George Floyd.”
The reforms to the package also include: asking the state to remove the police commissioner’s exclusive authority over police discipline and send it to an independent body; give the City Council a greater voice on the actions of future police commissioners and demand that the mayor seek approval from the Council to appoint a police commissioner; investigate police with a history of prejudice; require the NYPD to issue a quarterly report on traffic stops; creation of a non-police emergency response unit for mental health calls; reform the role of school security officers; requiring reports on the school security turnover rate and transferring accident investigations to the city’s transportation department, NY1 reported.
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Paul Best and Bradford Betz of Fox News contributed to this report.