Flood of Military, Police in NYC Subways is Bad News for Black Folks, Experts Warn

Subway riders in New York City might notice some heavily armed military forces standing around on platforms after the state’s Gov. Kathy Hochul deployed the National Guard into the subway system last month — along with hundreds more New York State and MTA police officers.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced an additional 800 New York Police Department officers would also be flooding into the transit system.

However, policy experts warn that the influx of law enforcement and military forces will do little to address violent crime, and it may be Black subway riders who end up paying the ultimate price.

“[Based on] what we know about subway crime rates right now, there doesn’t seem to be a need for this kind of response,” says Jullian Harris-Calvin, director of Greater Justice New York for the Vera Institute.

In fact, ahead of the deployment of the National Guard and the surge in subway police, the number of major felonies, shootings, and overall crime in the transit system dropped, says Harris-Calvin, pointing to February data from the NYPD. She also noted that the proportion of violent arrests among all arrests that occurred within the transit system hit a four-year low in 2023.

“It’s not as if we’ve reached some high point or precipice with respect to transit crime over the last year or two,” she explains. “Having this kind of dramatic response, in particular, having the military flood the subway, isn’t a solution that’s in line with what the data is showing are the crime trends in the subway.”

Why an Increased Police Presence in NYC Now?

Governor Hochul says the surge and National Guard deployment isn’t about crime data. It’s about getting subway riders to “feel” safe.

“I can show you all the statistics in the world and say you should feel safe because the numbers are better,” said Hochul on “Morning Joe.” “But you’re the mom on the subway with your baby in a stroller. You’re the parent putting your kid on the subway to go to high school. You’re the senior citizen going to a doctor’s appointment. If you’re anxious, then I’m the Governor of the State of New York. I’m concerned about it.”

She added, “And if you feel better walking past someone in a uniform to make sure that someone doesn’t bring a knife or a gun on the subway, then that’s exactly why I did it.”

Not all of Hochul’s fellow New York Democrats agree with her assessment.

“I thought it was ridiculous, sensationalism that it would make people feel less safe,” says New York State Sen. Jabari Brisport (D-Brooklyn). “And I was proven right when hearing stories from people seeing that the National Guard had been deployed and saying, oh, I didn’t know New York City had gotten that bad.”

Lindsey McLendon, a senior fellow for Criminal Justice Reform at American Progress, agrees with Sen. Brisport that the increase of police forces may have the opposite of its intended effect.

“They’re professional soldiers, so there’s a good chance that they’re going to communicate the opposite signal intended,” says McLendon, “which is that public transportation is far less safe than people think it is because you have a militarized force deployed.”

Sen. Brisport says this recent development is about politics. “I think the Governor wants to try to convince New Yorkers that she’s serious about crime and safety, and she is going through this cheaper and easier method of tossing National Guard members into the subway,” he says.

Sen. Brisport says Mayor Adams’s political motivations are similar. “I think this is very clear evidence of the mayor not wanting to be outdone by the Governor as being the most pro-carceral,” he says. “We’ve seen in previous cases under Cuomo that this is ineffective and that we have spent more money on police to combat fare beating than was recouped.”

Black Subway Riders in the Crosshairs

Beyond the policy and politics surrounding Gov. Hochul and Mayor Adams’ flex of military and police forces, there is also a very real danger that Black subway riders could face increase instances of police harassment and brutality.

Lindiwe Rennert, senior research Associate at the Urban Institute, says Black youth are likely to be disproportionately impacted by a surge in police forces.

“Bringing in this entity that we know has a negative disproportional prejudicial and targeted relationship with folks of color,” she explains, “we would expect youth of color specifically... Black youth to be disproportionately victimized by this move.”

There’s also the question of whether additional policing would effectively prevent crime. McLendon says there is no good evidence to suggest that more police alone would be enough to prevent the types of incidents like the recent highly publicized shooting on the subway in Brooklyn.

“If you look at the Brooklyn shooting,” says McClendon. “The police were present on the platform as the train was pulling in. And I understand there’s a precinct located in that station. So just the simple presence of police there isn’t sufficient to prevent something like what happened.”

The Adams administration would argue that their policing strategy is working based on the decrease in subway crime in February and March following two separate surges in subway officers.

However, Rennert says that even if we assume that more police would lead to a decrease in violent crime, at least against transit workers, we can’t ignore the tradeoffs.

“There’s a world in which the increased presence of law enforcement or purely the increased presence of people, like increased eyes on the street, eyes in a space, correlated with decreased instances of violent crime,” says Rennert. “I still think it’s the wrong way to go because the tradeoff is too costly, which is a likely increase of assaults made by law enforcement on members of the public.”

Harris-Calvin says the primary impact of increasing law enforcement presence on the subway so far has been arrests for non-violent crimes like fare evasion, which she says mostly impacts Black and brown subway riders.

“We know that fare evasion tickets went up dramatically, and it’s most Black and brown people who are being ticketed and arrested,” she says, “And we’re not seeing any real kind of public safety benefits to having thousands of more police on the subways.”

Black Americans and The National Guard

The impact of the National Guard conducting “bag checks” on Black riders is a separate and slightly more complicated story.

In 2020, the National Guard was repeatedly brought in to quell Black Lives Matter protests throughout the United States.

Antonio Mingo, a Black Lives Matter protester in Washington, D.C., says his interactions with the National Guard in 2020 were significantly more positive than his interactions with law enforcement.

“They wasn’t out there harassing us, he says, “The ones that were actually out there doing the harassing and the ignorant plays that they were doing, that was more so the D.C. Police Department.”

However, Mingo still disagrees with the decision to deploy the National Guard in NYC’s subway system because of the message it sends. “I don’t understand why they would be sending the National Guard,” he says. “That’s nothing but an intimidation tactic.”

Mingo says the presence of the National Guard sends a signal to Black and other minority groups that they are the enemy that people need protection from.

“We as people of color, we thinking like wait a minute, all of us know the National Guard to be on the front line when it comes to if it’s a war or something,” he says. “So, when you’re sending them here, that’s supposed to protect us, but now it’s kind of like putting them in some shape or form against us ... that does not make sense. And that angers people even more.”

New Yorkers have readily voiced their concerns about the new bag check policy and its implications for Black riders.

What Will Make NYC’s Subway System Safer?

Rider and transit worker safety is an issue that we need to care about, says Rennert at the Urban Institute. But she says the previous methods of dealing with violence (i.e., flooding transit with law enforcement) haven’t fixed the problem.

Rennert’s research at the Urban Institute on transit safety suggests that things like improving the quality of the transit system, increasing free/reduced fare transit programs, and other ways of reducing tension would go a long way in reducing incidents of violence—particularly those directed at transit workers. But Rennert says solving the significant drivers of violence, like lack of civic trust and income inequality, can’t fall entirely on the shoulders of the transit system.

Sen. Brisport says it’s time for bolder action across the board.

“The actual way to make us safer is deeper investments into those resources that our communities need,” he says. “That’s better housing, that’s better education, jobs, and better mental health care. These all things require taxing the rich who donate heavily to the Governor and she doesn’t want to do that.”

He added, “She wants the cheaper and easier and less effective method of tossing National Guard members at the situation.”

For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.