International Courant
A 17-year-old lady has been arrested on suspicion of involvement within the crash of a stolen subway practice in New York Metropolis final week, police introduced Thursday. In the meantime, the search continues for an alleged confederate within the brazen theft.
The teenage suspect, whose title has not been launched, was arrested Wednesday afternoon and charged with first-degree felony harm and first-degree reckless endangerment, New York police stated.
The suspect arrested is believed to be the thief captured on safety digicam, dressed fully in pink, together with a pink bathe cap, police stated.
The practice theft got here amid a surge in law enforcement officials throughout the nation’s largest subway system to fight an increase in crime. New York Governor Kathy Hochul even deployed Nationwide Guard troops as a part of a five-point plan to guard subway riders.
“That is unquestionably a very silly and reckless act by two people who accessed the reside rails to board our practice,” New York Metropolis Transit Interim President Demetrius Crichlow stated Wednesday morning throughout a information convention asserting a proposed $68.4 billion, five-year capital enchancment plan for the 100-year-old Metropolitan Transit Authority system.
The second suspect, a person, remained at giant, police stated. He was described by police as having a slim construct and lightweight complexion. He was carrying a blue tank prime, crimson shorts and was carrying a black backpack.
In keeping with an incident report from the New York Police Division, the thieves, a person and a girl, stole the empty, out-of-service practice simply after midnight on Sept. 12 on the Briarwood subway station within the borough of Queens, police stated.
The MTA New York Metropolis Subway brand on a practice at a station in New York Metropolis, July 13, 2024.
Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto by way of Getty Photos, FILE
“These two people entered an empty practice and operated the practice, inflicting a collision and damaging the practice,” the NYPD incident report stated.
There have been no accidents and the suspects fled on foot, police stated.
In keeping with Crichlow, the practice was moved about 50 ft.
In keeping with police, the duo was captured on surveillance cameras strolling by the empty practice at Briarwood Station, then taking a brief journey.
In keeping with police, one of many alleged thieves was described as a girl of common construct and lightweight pores and skin.
New York Metropolis police have launched surveillance footage of two suspects, one among whom is pictured carrying a pink bathe cap, crashing a stolen subway automotive on the Briarwood subway station on Sept. 12, 2024.
Due to the NYPD
New York Police Division has launched surveillance footage of two suspects, one pictured right here in a blue tank prime, crashing a stolen subway automotive on the Briarwood subway station on Sept. 12, 2024.
Due to the NYPD
Crichlow stated the MTA is aggressively putting in safety cameras on subway trains, with about 70 % of subway automobiles now geared up with cameras.
“We’ve nice video footage, which has been turned over to the police, and we’re assured that they are going to catch the folks, the perpetrators on this case,” he stated.
Crichlow additionally stated New York Metropolis Transit has labored with the NYPD to design new, strengthened locks to stop intruders from coming into the drivers’ cabs.
“We’ve a design in place, it’s only a matter of getting the elements and beginning the installations,” Crichlow stated.
At the least it was the second theft of a New York Metropolis subway practice in lower than eight months.
On December 30, 2023, a gaggle stole two out-of-service trains parked in a restricted space close to the Forest Hills-71st Avenue subway station in Queens. In keeping with authorities, the group entered the engineers’ cabs of the entrance two practice automobiles earlier than driving them a brief distance north.
With crime on New York Metropolis’s public transit system up 45% year-over-year in January, largely as a consequence of aggravated thefts, Hochul deployed 1,000 state staff, together with 250 state troopers and MTA law enforcement officials, to assist the NYPD implement stricter bag checks in busy elements of the subway system.
Hochul additionally ordered the New York Nationwide Guard to make 750 members, presently a part of Joint Job Drive Empire Protect, out there to help in checking subway riders’ baggage for weapons.
In keeping with the NYPD’s newest crime statistics, crime on public transit by Sunday is down 5.4% in comparison with the identical interval in 2023.