New Yorkers are being attacked on the subway — and the city's answer keeps missing the point.
Felony and misdemeanor assaults on the New York City transit system have remained stubbornly high even as other major crimes have fallen. Law enforcement officials, including NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny, have said publicly that many of the people committing unprovoked attacks "seem like they need some kind of help with mental illness." A 9-year-old girl was punched in the face at Grand Central Terminal in April 2024 by a man who had attacked someone else at the same station nine days earlier. He had been staying in a homeless shelter.
The city's response has been to send more police. One thousand NYPD officers. One thousand National Guard and State Police members. Officers with psychology degrees riding the trains. These are not mental health interventions. They are law enforcement deployments — and they are not stopping the attacks.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg called on Governor Hochul and the State Legislature to follow through on earlier commitments to invest meaningfully in mental health care, "especially for New Yorkers who have been struggling, posing potential dangers to themselves and others." That call has not been answered with real funding.
We are calling on Mayor Mamdani, Governor Hochul, and the New York City Council to fund a genuine mental health crisis response on the subway — trained civilian crisis responders, not just armed officers, available around the clock at high-traffic stations — and to stop treating a public health crisis like a policing problem.
Sign to demand New York City finally address the mental health emergency driving attacks on the subway.