New York City’s subway-crime epidemic has gotten so ridiculous that it’s officially become fodder for late-night comedians, with “Saturday Night Live” teeing off on the violence in this week’s episode.
During Saturday’s “Weekend Update” segment, co-anchor Michael Che read a news item on the Big Apple recently marking five consecutive days without a shooting — a first for the city in 30 years.
He jokingly attributed the streak to it being “just way more fun to push people onto the subway tracks.”
Last year saw 10 murders on the city subway system, matching a 25-year high set in 2022, including the horrific killing of 57-year-old Debrina Kawam, who was burned to death on a Brooklyn F train in late December, allegedly by an illegal migrant.
Sebastian Zapeta-Calil of Guatemala has been charged with her murder but maintains his innocence, claiming he was intoxicated and didn’t remember the attack, which was all caught on grisly surveillance footage.
The brutal high-profile murder capping off a deadly year in the subway system finally prompted Gov. Kathy Hochul to address the issue during her “State of the State” address from Albany earlier this month.
Hochul pledged to step up enforcement efforts by posting more NYPD officers on overnight trains.
“I want to see uniformed police on the platforms, but more importantly, we will put an officer on every single train, overnight – 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. – over the next six months and the state will support these efforts financially,” she said, without elaborating on how much the enhanced enforcement will cost.
“The chaos must end,” she said.
In a follow-up statement, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch clarified that two officers will be posted in every train.
The moves came even as MTA honcho Janno Lieber earlier this month pooh-poohed subway crime as being “in people’s heads.”
Although subway violence is generally down compared to recent years, last year ended with a spate of incidents in which lunatics shoved straphangers onto the tracks without provocation.
In early December, an unidentified woman randomly shoved a 43-year-old man onto the J train tracks at the Kosciuszko Street station in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, police sources told The Post.
The assailant fled the scene and has not been captured.
Then right around the end of the year, a 23-year-old named Kamel Hawkins was arrested and charged with attempted murder for allegedly shoving a total stranger onto the tracks at the 18th Street station in Manhattan.
The incidents have been frequent enough to prompt subway riders to more closely watch their backs and keep away from the edge of platforms out of fear they could be the next victims.
On two recent afternoons, The Post witnessed hundreds of straphangers hugging the walls inside stations at East 86th, East 77th, East 68th, East 59th and East 51st streets and West 18th Street, 14th Street-Union Square and Wall Street.
