By Philip Newman
Crime in the subways has been declining for years, but increased 24 percent last year with half of the incidents involving snatch-and-grab theft from straphangers on board trains.
Deputy Chief Owen Monaghan, of the NYPD Transit Bureau, said much of present subway crime is inside the cars rather than on station platforms.
“We have moved into the trains,” Monaghan said.
Monaghan told the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Transit Committee that 70 percent of subway grand larceny was committed on board trains by people who have abandoned pickpocketing to simply grab items like electronic devices from passengers and flee just as the doors close.
Statistics show 40 percent of subway crimes occur in Manhattan, 33 percent in Brooklyn, 14 percent in Queens and 13 percent in the Bronx.
Monaghan said the NYPD has been using cops posing as tourists as part of its strategy against subway crime.
In other transit news:
• several MTA Board members have spoken out in favor of restoring parts of the Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North Railroad, subway and subway system that were shut because of the agency’s financial plight. The subject came up Nov. 16 as MTA Board members discussed the agency’s 2012 budget. Acting MTA Chairman Andrew Saul said it might be too early for restoring the transit cuts.
• a construction worker was killed in a tunnel of the East Side Access last Thursday night. The MTA said Michael O’Brien was struck by a fragment of falling concrete. The project will bring LIRR trains into Grand Central Terminal.
• the MTA Department of Bridges and Tunnels announced the 3 billionth E-ZPass transaction since the system began. Based on traffic statistics, the milestone was reached at some point Nov. 15. The MTA introduced E-ZPass in 1995 on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which connects Brooklyn with Staten Island.
• the New York Civil Liberties Union has sued in federal court over what the organization says has been the illegal arrest of people taking photographs in a subway station. The lawsuit says the action is in defense of two photographers who were arrested last year in the Broad Channel subway station. The suit also says police illegally demanded identification papers from those arrested.
Reach contributing writer Philip Newman by e-mail at timesledgernews@cnglocal.com or phone at 718-260-4536.
