More people are packing heat when they ride the rails in New York City — and gun arrests have surged an astounding 94% compared to 2019, The Post has learned.
So far this year, NYPD transit cops have made 37 gun arrests versus 19 in 2019, NYPD data show.
Police made 54% more arrests this year compared to the 24 gun busts during the same period in 2022.
“People who carry guns carry them everywhere,” said one longtime Manhattan police officer.
“And everybody’s got them now because they’re not getting stopped and frisked.”
The shocking news of the increased gun arrests emerged in an interview with Chief of Transit Michael Kemper, who insisted the arrests are a good sign, leading to an overall drop in crime underground.
Subway crime is down 5% so far in 2023, with nearly all of the six major crimes dropping except felony assault and burglary, which are up 4% and 43%, respectively, the NYPD data show.
“We’re stopping people for fare evading and we’re coming up with loaded guns and every loaded gun we recover is one less gun that’s in the hands of someone that could shoot,” he said.
So far this year, there have been three shooting incidents on the subways with four victims, police said.
Last year, there were nine incidents with 18 victims, driven by one mass shooting on a Brooklyn subway.
Frank James, 64, shot and wounded 10 victims on a packed train in April 2022.
James was sentenced to life in prison earlier this month.
But one straphanger who was the victim of subway crime scoffed at the stats.
“What’s the metric for ‘subway crime is down?’” wondered assault victim Gladys Chen.
“Subway crime is down where . . . because anecdotally, are you kidding? How can that be when that woman was pushed at 53rd and 5th the other day?”
Chen was referring to a 30-year-old woman who suffered critical injuries that required brain surgery after a stranger, later identified as Sabir Jones, 39, allegedly shoved her into a departing downtown F train at the Fifth Avenue station around noon Wednesday.
The victim’s head hit the train before she fell to the tracks.
Jones, who has a lengthy rap sheet in Newark that includes gun, drug, and assault charges, was believed to have punched a 26-year-old male straphanger at the same Midtown station just minutes earlier.
“Crime is definitely up,” said Chen, who was punched so hard by a crazed woman on the N/R/W platform at the 23rd Street Station in Manhattan on Aug. 23 that her contact lens popped out of her eye.
“Everyone is complaining about stuff they’re seeing and I’m calling bulls–t,” she said.
“It’s a complete head-scratcher.”
The NYPD is trying to do something about the public’s perception by curtailing quality of life offenses, such as turnstile jumping, which has led to 97% of the gun arrests so far this year, Kemper said.
“This leads to a perception of lawlessness and our cops are working hard to correct it,” he said.
Cops have written fare-evasion summonses or made arrests in 103,066 stops so far this year as compared to 67,473 in the same period in 2022 — a 52.8% hike, police said.
Most of the people — 97% — who are stopped for fare evasion get simple non-criminal summonses.
“This is not about arresting people,” he said.
“This is about correcting behavior.”
Those increases came as about 1,200 additional police officers were sent into the system in October 2022 as part of the city’s Cops, Cameras, and Care initiative — a city and state-funded program.
There are still hundreds of additional cops being sent into the subways every day, Kemper said.
At the same time, the NYPD has seen a 53% increase in quality-of-life tickets written underground, with 133,161 so far this year compared to 86,682 in the same span of 2022.
These include fare evasion, smoking, lying on subway benches, and other offenses.
There has also been an uptick in overall arrests underground.
So far this year the NYPD has made 10,783 arrests in the subway, compared to 6,848 it made in the same period last year — a 57.5% spike.
Kemper pointed out that crime underground was up over 40% in 2022 compared to the same period in 2021 when ridership was down because of COVID-19.
“It’s real progress,” Kemper said.
“But we still recognize that we still have a lot of work to do to get where we want to be and we’re committed to that. We’re not waving a flag of victory.”
But a second police source said the arrests are just cosmetic, in part because many of the people arrested aren’t being prosecuted.
“Nobody’s going to jail and they all know it,” a Brooklyn cop said, “even if they’re carrying a gun.”
