Two people died and two others were injured in a violent stabbing spree targeting homeless people in New York subways on Friday.
According to The New York Times, the first killing was reported on Friday on a subway train in Queens: The police found a man, apparently homeless, dead from stab wounds to the neck and torso, slumped on a seat.
The second killing was reported two hours later, when a 44-year-old woman, also apparently homeless, was stabbed throughout her body underneath a seat on a train at a station in Upper Manhattan.
Citing the police, The New York Times reported that there was nearly a third killing at a third subway station, when a 43-year-old homeless man sleeping on an exit stairwell was awakened by a sharp pain in his back. He, too, had been stabbed. He ran to a bank, collapsed and was in stable condition at a hospital.
The police said that all three attacks were likely committed by the same person and they may be linked to an earlier non-fatal attack on Friday morning, in which an assailant yelled, "I'm going to kill you," then stabbed a 67-year-old homeless man in the knee and buttocks as he pushed his walker on a train platform.
The four attacks -- all within 24 hours on the A-line -- amounted to an alarming surge in the recent spate of violence in the subways, and underscored the vulnerability of the hundreds of homeless people who shelter in the transit system, The New York Times reported.
Meanwhile, Police Commissioner Dermot F Shea earlier said that 500 more officers would be immediately deployed throughout the subway system, both above and below ground.
Even though the subways have only a fraction of the ridership they had before the pandemic, violent crimes have persisted and at times increased. For 2020 through mid-November, there were more incidents of felony assault, rape, homicide and robbery in the subways than during the same period in 2019, The New York Times reported.
On Saturday, Sarah Feinberg, interim president of the MTA's subway agency, and Tony Utano, the president of Transport Workers Union Local 100, released a joint statement calling for increased police presence on the subway.
"The recent horrifying attacks in the subway system are outrageous and unacceptable," the statement read.
"We have been calling on the city to add more police to the system, and to do more to assist those who desperately need mental health assistance. The time for action is now," the statement read.
( With inputs from ANI )
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