A thousand members of the New York State National Guard will be deployed to subway stations in the American metropolis to fight crime, Gov. Kathy Hokul announced Wednesday.

The announcement comes after an increase in incidents of violence at metro stations.

In mid-February, a shooting incident at a Bronx train station left one person dead and five others injured. Late last month, a subway driver was attacked with a knife at a Brooklyn station.

Indicatively, the number of serious crimes on the transport network jumped by 50% in January 2024, compared to the same month in 2023.These appalling and shameless attacks on our metro network will not be tolerateds”, underlined the governor.

At the same time, he promised the installation of additional closed-circuit cameras and announced a plan to more easily ban people convicted of assaulting a transit worker from the subway.

The deployment of National Guard troopers is intended to assist the New York City Police Department in beefing up passenger bag checks, particularly at busier stations.

For his part, New York Mayor Eric Adams, who has served as police chief and was elected in 2021 on the promise of restoring safety to the city after the Covid-19 pandemic, also announced the strengthening of controls.

Prior to the incidents in recent years, the most serious incident occurred in April 2022, when a man opened fire on a Brooklyn rush-hour train, injuring dozens.

With information from APE-MPE