High-profile random attacks — notably the horrific arson in which a woman was burned to death on an F train — “overshadowed” New York City’s supposed successes in reining in subway crime during 2024, Mayor Eric Adams contended Tuesday.
Adams, during a defiant end-of-year news conference, repeated his years-long mantra that the “perception” of out-of-control subway crime must be curtailed.
“We are doing the job on bringing down the numbers, but as I say over and over and I said in 2022, New Yorkers must feel safe,” he told reporters from City Hall.
“People are seeing and feeling what they’re reading. So, our success is overshadowed.”
Newly installed NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch will send more officers onto subway platforms and into trains themselves to engage straphangers, Adams said, without providing details on how many additional cops or when or where they would be deployed.
His press conference came nearly simultaneously with an NYPD announcement that investigators identified the straphanger who was burned to death more than a week ago as Debrina Kawam, 57, of New Jersey.
Kawam was allegedly set aflame by illegal Guatemalan immigrant Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, who faces first-degree murder charges in the sadistic attack.
The shocking, caught-on-video spectacle of Kawam’s body consumed by fire on an F train in Coney Island — all while the accused killer fanned the flames, before calmly sitting to watch the deadly pyre — punctuated a year of concerns that the subways are returning to the unsafe bad old days.
The fears led the red-bereted Guardian Angels and the crusaders’ flamboyant founder, Curtis Sliwa, to return for the first time in years to patrol the subways, where straphangers greeted them like old friends.
Adams warned Sliwa, his Republican opponent in the 2021 mayoral election, not to “overstep.”
The mayor maintained the subway system only has six reported crimes a day, but a deeper look at NYPD crime statistics shows violent crime, including murder, has been rising on the rails.
The arson slaying tipped subway murders to 10 this year — double the number of murders in 2023 and matching a 25-year high reached in 2022, data show.
Other attacks were also at high levels — a fact punctuated by a straphanger being pushed in front of a 1 train in Manhattan shortly after Adams’ press conference.
As Adams insisted the subways are safe, he also brushed off his scandal-plagued year that saw many of his top embattled pals pushed out.
The most recent ouster was NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, who resigned amid explosive accusations that he demanded sexual favors from a subordinate in exchange for massive amounts of overtime.
Adams sidestepped a question about whether he, as mayor, bore responsibility for appointing allegedly problematic officials such as Maddrey. He instead contended the buck stopped with whether his officials deliver results.
“It’s my responsibility to make sure that the people are employed to the city deliver for the people of New York, and I take that responsibility,” he said.
The mayor also argued every Big Apple administration has had its fair share of disgraced officials.
“Life is hard,” he said when pressed by The Post, later telling reporters he had “no regrets” from 2024.
