New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams threw cold water on Gov. Hochul’s plan to have 1,000 National Guard members and state police patrol the city’s subway system, saying Thursday that more emphasis needs to be placed on addressing the “root causes” of disarray underground.
“There are ways to address this issue — other ways to address it — other than more policing into the subway system,” Adams said during a City Hall press briefing Thursday. “We need to take a look at the root causes. Where is the investment in mental health service?”
A day earlier, Hochul announced she’s deploying 750 members of the National Guard as well as 250 state troopers and MTA police officers to check straphangers’ bags. The move comes in response to several recent violent attacks within the state-controlled subway system.
The plan the governor unveiled Wednesday also includes a $20 million plan to increase the number of clinical teams responding to mentally disturbed people on the subway system, installing surveillance cameras in conductor cabs and legislation to ban people convicted of an assault inside the subway system from using the system for three years.
Hochul’s team did not immediately respond to the speaker’s remarks when contacted Thursday by the Daily News.
During her press briefing, Speaker Adams went on to reference recent news footage depicting shoeless homeless people wrapped in blankets at a subway station.
“Where are the services for those individuals?” she said. “I would love to see those investments coming into our city — stronger mental health solutions that actually prevent people from cycling through the criminal justice system — that should be our focus.”
When asked to clarify those remarks, given Hochul’s inclusion of mental health help in her announcement a day earlier, a spokesperson for the speaker said the Council is appreciative of the governor’s $1 billion investment in mental health services last year, and that the speaker was pointing out that the emphasis should remain on that, not more policing.
