Heinous Transit Crimes Recall Dark Days of Gotham

L ast weekend, Abdul Malik Little — a 46-year-old resident of Queens — was playing music out loud on his phone’s speaker while riding the Metro North. As the train approached Grand Central Station, a fellow 31-year-old rider requested that Little quiet the clamor.

He refused. An argument ensued. Little brandished a knife and stabbed his fellow rider twice in the chest, according to eyewitness reports. The victim had enough wherewithal to stagger off the train and identify his attacker to police patrolling the platform. He was then taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

The 31-year-old victim — an unnamed man — was allegedly stabbed just for asking a fellow passenger to abide by the rules of the train. Under “§1050.7 Disorderly conduct,” in the Metro Transit Authority (MTA) Rules of Conduct and Fines:

No person on or in any facility or conveyance shall . . . create any sound through the use of any sound production device. . . . Sound production device includes, but is not limited to, any radio receiver, phonograph, television receiver, musical instrument, tape recorder, cassette player, compact disc player, speaker device or system, and any sound amplifier or any sound-producing device of similar nature.

In other words, Little’s personal concert was, in fact, breaking the rules of his contract (assuming he had actually purchased MTA North tickets). For rule-abiding passengers, is this, then, the new normal? Sit and accept the chaos, or get . . . stabbed?

According to the MTA Police Department, Little faces charges of attempted murder, felony assault, and criminal possession of a weapon. Hopefully he’ll actually end up behind bars for his (alleged) crime, but Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg has sent criminals free over and over and over again. For just one example — Jamar Banks, an unstable inhabitant of the subway, was arrested and released 87 times before he allegedly stabbed another straphanger and an off-duty MTA cleaner in separate incidents last week.

Little’s defense attorney, Jacqueline Dombroff, hopes he will join the flock of Bragg’s returned-to-the-streets arrestees. She told the judge overseeing the case: “Mr. Little doesn’t fit into type of case we see in the press. . . . The way that the press is including this in the trend of stories of stranger attacks on the subway couldn’t be further from the truth.” At the arraignment, Dombroff that the confrontation was “not an instance of someone lashing out at an undeserving stranger” and that Little “wants to clear his name.” (So Little’s victim deserved to be stabbed for asking Little to turn off his music?)

Regardless of Dombroff’s assertions, Little’s alleged crime does, in fact, follow a recent pattern. The incident rides on the tails of the Christmas Eve stabbings at Grand Central and the horrific incineration of Debrina Kawam a few days prior.

Crucially, these crimes have been both horrific and random. Throats have been slashed and bodies have been set ablaze. While the city’s crime statistics might not have shifted dramatically, these crimes rightly diminish public trust in the transit system. The combination of gore and chance damages the sense of safety of all public-transit users — and New Yorkers at large. Don’t believe me? The sudden resurgence of the Guardian Angels evidences this general surge of insecurity.

The civilian volunteer association — whose members are easily recognizable by their red berets and bomber jackets — first emerged in the ’70s in response to the historic rise of crime in the city. The Angels conduct safety patrols in dangerous areas, with the aim of deterring crime and protecting at-risk citizens. The founder, Curtis Sliwa, still heads the organization. As the Republican mayoral candidate who ran against Eric Adams in 2021, Sliwa has held a distinguished — and at times fraught — position in New York politics.

Sliwa recently spoke out on the uptick in crime, saying that his volunteer squad plans on increasing its ranks to 1980 levels, when 1,000 Guardian Angels patrolled the city. He told the New York Post that the Angels are resuming their service for Gotham — for the first time since 2020 — because “hundreds of citizens” have requested it. “We’re covering the actual trains from front to back, walking through the trains and making sure that everything is okay,” Sliwa said, “that’s going to be our complete focus because the subways are out of control.”

In another interview, Sliwa said the recent surge in crime has “never been worse.” “When you descend into the Subway,” Sliwa said, “it’s a combination of ‘Dante’s Inferno,’ ‘Clockwork Orange’ and Jack Nicholson in ‘The Shining’ and ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.’”

“Look at that woman who has turned into a human torch,” Sliwa continued, “Debrina Kawam, cheerleader, all-American girl, the Jersey girl.” Kawam had been in and out of homeless shelters before her fiery end. Sliwa further commented that the Guardian Angels “deal with the homeless and emotionally disturbed . . . because they’re the forgotten people. They’re Americans, ” he said, while “migrants [get] put up in hotels.”

The disintegration of standard civility and rule-following on public transit (like playing music out loud) foreshadows an uptick of asocial, violent behavior. In the same way that “broken windows” affect the psychology of a neighborhood, broken rules affect the psychology of strap-hangers. Of course, homeless and/or mentally unwell riders also contribute to this problem, but the city has taken a position of toleration instead of enforcement.

When riders evade fare, smoke, vape, play music, litter, spit, urinate, defecate, hawk trinkets, sleep on the floor, or pass between cars — all actions banned by the NYC Transit Authority — they contribute to a culture of lawlessness.

The city’s Democratic leadership has turned a blind eye to enforcing these seemingly minor transgressions. Instead, they’ve backed campaigns for their transit to “Go Green.” These plans are filled with oodles of wasteful spending — like replacing the entire fleet of MTA’s 5,800 buses with zero-emission vehicles. This effort alone will cost the city over 2 billion dollars, as the average electric bus costs $350,000.

To further advance their green agenda, the city just implemented a steep congestion fee. New Yorkers who commute in their car will have to pay nine dollars, each way, for driving at peak hours. (Chicago’s mayor has just said his city “should explore” this option as well.) For commuters who drive to work every day, this new fee could cost them nearly $5,000 over the course of one year. Instead of making the subway safer, cleaner, and more reliable, the city decided to punish those who (rationally) prefer private transit.

If the Democrats want to minimize auto traffic — and increase the number of public transit users — they must improve the rider experience on commuter trains and the subway. Democrats must understand that individuals are, broadly speaking, rational actors. If conditions on the trains and subways are seriously improved, riders will choose to use public transit more often.

A message for Mayor Eric Adams: Make the subway great again.