New York Metropolis officers introduced a pilot program on Thursday to deploy transportable gun scanners within the subway system, a part of an effort to discourage violence underground and to make the system really feel safer.
The scanners might be launched in sure stations after a legally mandated 90-day ready interval, Mayor Eric Adams stated.
“Keeping New Yorkers safe on the subway and maintaining confidence in the system is key to ensuring that New York remains the safest big city in America,” stated Adams, who additionally introduced a plan to ship additional outreach workers into subway stations to attempt to get individuals with psychological well being points who’re dwelling within the system into therapy.
Adams stated officers would work to determine corporations with experience in weapons detection expertise and that after the ready interval the scanners could be instituted in some subway stations “where the NYPD will be able to further evaluate the equipment’s effectiveness.”
The scanner that Adams and police officers launched throughout Thursday’s information convention in a decrease Manhattan station got here from Evolv, a publicly traded firm that has been accused of doctoring the results of software testing to make its scanners seem more practical than they’re.
Jerome Greco, supervising legal professional of the digital forensics unit on the Authorized Support Society, stated gun detection methods can set off false alarms and trigger panic.
“This Administration’s headstrong reliance on technology as a panacea to further public safety is misguided, costly, and creates significant invasions of privacy,” Greco stated in a information launch.
Adams stated the town would carry out its personal evaluation of the scanners’ accuracy.
“People may have had bad experiences with this technology,” Adams, a former transit police officer, stated. “What we witnessed, it’s living up to our expectations. And we’re going to do an analysis and determine, hey is it living up to our expectations.”
Metropolis officers didn’t say precisely the place the scanners could be put in. The system they demonstrated on the Fulton Road station beeped after transient delay when a police officer with a holstered gun went by means of however was silent when officers carrying cellphones and different digital units handed by means of.
General, violent crime is rare within the metropolis’s subway system, which serves about 3 million riders a day, however there have been two current high-profile taking pictures incidents. Earlier in March, a person was shot together with his personal gun and critically wounded throughout a confrontation with one other passenger. Final month, one particular person was killed and a number of other others wounded when shots rang out amid a battle between two teams on a rush-hour subway automotive.
There have been 5 killings within the system final yr, down from 10 the yr prior, in response to police. There have been three homicides within the first two months of 2024.
The scanner announcement got here days after a fatal shove in an East Harlem subway station on Monday as soon as once more introduced the difficulty of subway security to the forefront.
Additionally on Monday, New York City officials announced a plan to ship 800 extra law enforcement officials into the subway system to crack down on fare evasion.
Earlier than the newest surge, the NYPD had seized 17 weapons from individuals stopped within the system this yr, Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chair and CEO Janno Lieber stated at a board assembly Wednesday.
