NYC subway murders reach 25-year high as 'tone deaf' Hochul congratulates herself on transit safety

The horrifying case of a woman being burned alive on a Coney Island subway by an illegal immigrant is the latest in rising crime that has hit New York City's subway system. That crime is part of a 25-year high for murders in the subway system, the Daily Mail reported. Even Democrats are wondering if they should be doing something different. 

As 2024 nears an end, 10 murders have occurred on the NYC subways – that’s double the figure from 2023. It includes the incident where illegal immigrant Sebastian Zapeta-Calil is accused of setting a sleeping woman on fire and fanning the flames. Cops observed the scene but did nothing to intervene except call emergency services. Zapeta-Calil had been booted out of the US in 2018 but came back in as a gotaway.

From 1997 to 2019, there were never more than five murders in the subway system per year. The current level of violence has taken off since the Covid pandemic. The latest incident drives home how the Democratic state and the city have failed to address rising crime and the illegal immigration that sometimes fuels it.

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch has called the woman’s death by flames “one of the most depraved crimes one person could possibly commit.” There were more acts of violence on the NYC subway last weekend, including a 76-year-old woman being brutally attacked in Manhattan station and a 27-year-old man being beaten up in what was apparently a random, unprovoked assault, the Mail reported.

In Brooklyn last week, a duo carrying guns shot two other young men at the subway station there. On Friday, an 83-year-old man was hit repeatedly after he tripped over another man’s leg. Then, there was another case of illegal immigrant crime as five migrants tried to rob a 69-year-old, per the Mail.

Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) posted some pics of herself on the subway as she boasted about how safe it was to take the train across the city just hours after the woman was set on fire. “In March, I took action to make our subways safer for the millions of people who take the trains each day,” Hochul said.

Hochul was talking about steps she had taken to post National Guard members with NYPD officers to assist in their work and specifically to search for unlawful weapons in the bags of commuters.

Hochul couldn’t even keep her fellow Democrats happy, as Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) wondered just what the governor was thinking. “Two hours ago, Kathy Hochul took a victory lap for making subways ‘safer.’ She congratulates herself on the same day two subway riders were stabbed in Queens (one in the face and one in the chest) and another was barbarically burned alive. Has there ever been a more tone-deaf Governor in the history of New York?”