They are the buzzwords of New York City crime circa 2022: Random and unprovoked.
A chilling spate of latest incidents involving harmless victims runs the gamut from a girl savagely crushed inside a Queens subway station to a 17-year-old Brooklyn lady killed by a stray bullet to a Mexican immigrant practically killed by a sucker-punch exterior a Manhattan restaurant.
The newest terrifying assault took the lifetime of of a veteran metropolis EMS lieutenant on her solution to seize lunch in Astoria this previous Thursday, with a schizophrenic stranger knocking her to the sidewalk earlier than stabbing her 20 instances for no obvious purpose.
“There’s something profoundly wrong with New York,” mentioned Mary Hassler, 66, an Astoria resident and cosmetics gross sales individual. “The variety of these assaults are rising. There appears to be increasingly on a regular basis.
“It’s every New Yorker’s fear.”
Only the taking pictures this previous Wednesday of adlescent sufferer Shayma Roman, out of the cited incidents, didn’t contain suspects with psychological well being points, police mentioned. The NYPD doesn’t hold rely of random or unprovoked assaults dedicated by the mentally in poor health — or anybody else.
But the division stories an uptick up to now this yr in 911 calls involving emotionally disturbed folks. Through Sept. 29, police cited an 8% hike with the most recent numbers at 131,199 — roughly 500 per day, up from 128,488 over the identical stretch of 2021.
And in a yr when the NYPD reported a virtually 12% drop in homicides, there was additionally a citywide 37% leap in robberies and a 43% enhance in grand larceny as New Yorkers expressed their fears in regards to the ongoing state of affairs.
“You hear of these attacks daily,” mentioned Lucia Constantine, 46, as she handed the spot the place 61-year-old FDNY EMS Lt. Alison Russo was inexplicably killed on a September afternoon. “They have been more and more, and there’s no consequences. These people are out here with rap sheets as long as their arms.”
Just final week, stunning video emerged of a homeless man concentrating on a complete stranger within the Howard Beach-JFK Airport subway cease again on Sept. 20. The suspect, with a prison previous that features the killing of his grandmother as a 14-year-old, repeatedly punched and kicked the mom of two small youngsters, who was at risk of shedding her sight in a single eye after the relentless beating.
Ex-NYPD officer Eugene O’Donnell, now a professor on the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, mentioned the arbitrary incidents resonate extra with New Yorkers than different crimes or any crime statistics.
“People seem far more afraid of random attacks,” he mentioned. “And people are not always rational about what they fear. It’s a cliche, but it’s the truth. A small number of subway passengers might be pushed on the tracks. But it’s powerful to riders who sense there’s no safety net.”
O’Donnell was astounded by the sheer quantity of every day 911 calls about disturbed folks, “With 500 a day, something has to end badly.”
The metropolis Health Department, in an announcement, famous its Mobile Crisis Teams responds to psychological well being conditions requiring pressing however not instant motion.
“NYC has launched a number of programs in recent years, many of which have seen sizable expansions in this administration, for New Yorkers living with serious mental illness,” the assertion learn. “Many of these interventions serve New Yorkers who are, or may become, justice-involved.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”