Transit employees’ union requires MTA to ramp up security measures on the finish of subway strains, following brutal practice operator stabbing

Town’s largest transit employees’ union is demanding that the MTA ramp up security measures on the finish of subway strains within the wake of the brutal stabbing of practice operator Myran Pollack in Brooklyn final week. 

Members of the Transport Employees Union Native 100 – which represents greater than 40,000 bus and subway employees – rallied Thursday exterior the Crown Heights-Utica Avenue station on the finish of the No. 4 line, the identical cease the place a recidivist attacker stabbed 60-year-old Pollack twice on Oct. 8. 

“We want actual motion now. Our members are going through unacceptable risks, and the present insurance policies simply aren’t slicing it,” Richard Davis, President of TWU Native 100, mentioned in a press release.  

“It’s time for the MTA to step up and take accountability for shielding the employees who maintain this metropolis working.”

The union is pushing for a change to rules in order that transit workers not work alone whereas taking trains out of service. 

They’re urging that conductors and practice operators stroll the cleared-out practice collectively to make sure that no passengers are nonetheless on board. 

Over the previous three years, 31 MTA employees have been assaulted whereas cleansing out trains, “additional proving the pressing want for security reforms,” the union mentioned. 

In Pollack’s case, he was trying to wash out the practice alone when he requested lingering passenger Jonathan Davalos, 27, to go away, authorities mentioned. 

As an alternative of complying, Davalos allegedly flew right into a rage, following Pollack onto the platform earlier than attacking him so viciously that he required not less than two surgical procedures. 

The union can be calling for MTA police to be current in any respect stations the place trains are evacuated – in order that they’re available to assist if passengers flip violent.

“These aren’t simply solutions—they’re life-saving measures,” Canella Gomez, TWU Native 100 Fast Transit Operations Vice President mentioned in a press release. “Our members ought to by no means must face these risks alone. We want stronger insurance policies and quicker responses to maintain our individuals protected.”

Union members are moreover pushing for frequent conferences between high MTA officers and TWU Native 100 “to evaluate and implement enhanced security protocols for frontline employees.”

“Transit employees should be revered and guarded!” union members chanted on the Thursday gathering. “Sufficient is sufficient!” 

Some held indicators that learn, “We don’t come to work to be punching baggage” and “Had been you protected as we speak or simply fortunate?”

The most recent NYPD information – which covers the interval from Jan. 1 by way of Oct. 6 – signifies that assaults on MTA subway workers throughout the town have dipped to 30 from the 44 reported throughout the identical timeframe in 2023. 

In a single such incident final month, Robert Ray, 33, randomly punched a feminine station agent within the face in Midtown, claiming he did it as a result of “as a result of the voices in my head have been speaking to me,” prosecutors mentioned. 

In late Could, an on-duty MTA conductor was socked within the face as he tried to interrupt up a battle at a Queens subway station, authorities mentioned.

Earlier that month, a practice operator was clearing a Queens practice of passengers so it may very well be taken to a lay-up location when a crazed commuter tackled him, knocking him to the ground of the automotive, police mentioned.

One other conductor was randomly whacked within the head with a glass bottle by an unhinged stranger within the Bronx again in March, cops mentioned. 

Interim NYC Transit President Demetrius Crichlow didn’t instantly tackle the union’s calls for however mentioned the MTA is working to maintain repeat offenders off the streets.

“Earlier than his heinous assault on a practice operator, Jonathan Davalos had on totally different days attacked one other subway worker and a rider,” Crichlow mentioned in a Friday assertion.

“This recidivist habits is why the MTA has fought in Albany for harsher penalties for crimes occurring within the transit system, and why we push for probably the most aggressive attainable prosecutions when workers, prospects and police are assaulted,” the assertion mentioned.

“We’re glad to have TWU Native 100 be a part of that effort, and to have their assist for the NYPD and the district attorneys, as they work to make sure that most attainable penalties are imposed.”

An company spokesman mentioned that the MTA will proceed to debate security issues with its “labor companions.”