I’ve always thought that Gov. Hochel had bad politicxal skills…
I STILL believe that…..
Deploying troops and state police to the subways , which rich people do NOT use has NOT gone over well….
This IS also a reputiation of the move decades ago to fold the separate Trnasit police into to the NY City Police Department …
The Governor has moved into something that should have a problem for the New York City Mayor , even if the subway system is actually a state agency…
And she’s getting a beat down for her mistake from just about EVERYBODY….
Just 24 hours after Gov. Kathy Hochul deployed the National Guard and the State Police in the New York City subway to quell fears of crime, the unusual show of force drew intense criticism on Thursday from various corners, some unexpected.
On the left, Jumaane N. Williams, the city’s public advocate, warned that Ms. Hochul’s plan would “criminalize the public on public transit.” Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher, a democratic socialist from Brooklyn, said it was a “ham-fisted and authoritarian response” that “validates G.O.P. propaganda about urban lawlessness in an election year.”
Centrists fretted that the deployment of troops carrying long guns — beamed across the country by Fox News and other cable outlets — would actually make New Yorkers and would-be tourists feel less safe, not more.
“The militarization of a response like this can be counterproductive, actually,” Representative Pat Ryan, an embattled Hudson Valley Democrat and former Army officer, said on CNN.
Even top brass from the New York Police Department took issue.
In an unorthodox post on X, John Chell, the department’s chief of patrol, implied the governor’s approach was beside the point. He cited recent statistics suggesting that transit crime has dropped after a spike in January because more of his officers were walking the beat.
“Our transit system is not a ‘war’ zone!” he wrote, adding that the governor’s plan to check passengers’ bags was hardly a novel technique: “Bag checks have been around since 2005???”
Instead of outside law enforcement assistance, Chief Chell argued that state leaders should be working to repeal or overhaul criminal justice laws enacted by Democrats in recent years that make it harder to require that bail be set for repeat offenders. Those changes are a nonstarter among ruling Democrats in Albany, but Chief Chell suggested his own solution: “If you want change, then vote for the change you seek.”…
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Even some Democrats otherwise inclined to agree with the need for extraordinary measures said they found issue not so much with Ms. Hochul’s goal but its execution.
“I worry that it sends the signal to the world that the city is more dangerous than it is,” said Howard Wolfson, a Democratic strategist who served as deputy mayor under Michael R. Bloomberg.
Not even Republicans, who have called for more police on the streets and pounded Ms. Hochul in the past, were willing to lend their support.
image…Adam Gray for The New York Times