After a surge in violence on the New York City subway in the last few weeks, New York Governor Kathy Hochul said that security cameras have been installed in "every single subway car" in the city, which she said will help police fight and "solve crimes even faster."
This comes amid a wave of violent crime incidents in the New York City subway system, including a homeless woman being burned alive by an illegal immigrant and a man being pushed in front of an approaching subway.
It also follows the high-profile trial of former Marine Daniel Penny, who was charged but later cleared of homicide for his actions defending subway passengers from a mentally unstable homeless man named Jordan Neely.
Hochul, a Democrat, touted her deployment of 1,000 National Guard members to patrol the New York City subway, saying: "Public safety is my top priority." She also claimed credit for directing the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to install cameras in subway cars, which she said has now been completed.
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"The recent surge in violent crimes in our public transit system cannot continue — and we need to tackle this crisis head-on," she said. "I directed the MTA to install security cameras in every single subway car, and now that the project is complete, these cameras are helping police solve crimes even faster."
Hochul went on to emphasize that "many of these horrific incidents have involved people with serious untreated mental illness," which she said is "the result of a failure to get treatment to people who are living on the streets and are disconnected from our mental health care system."
She blamed weak state laws and "nearly half a century of disinvestment in mental health care and supportive housing," which she said "directly contributed to the crisis we see on our streets and subways."
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Hochul said she would introduce legislation to change New York’s laws governing the involuntary commitment of dangerous mentally unstable individuals to improve the process through which a court can order certain individuals to participate in assisted outpatient treatment.
"We can’t fully address this problem without changes to state law," she said. "Currently, hospitals are able to commit individuals whose mental illness puts themselves or others at risk of serious harm, and this legislation will expand that definition to ensure more people receive the care they need."
Despite these commitments, Hochul is being criticized for not being stronger on protecting New Yorkers traveling on the subway.
"The Governor is all talk and no action," said Curtis Sliwa, an activist and founder of the "Guardian Angels," a citizen law enforcement group known for patrolling and offering assistance to subway passengers.
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Sliwa told Fox News Digital that Hochul should "lever her power" and call out individual members of the state legislature who refuse to support legislation to commit the emotionally disturbed to state psychiatric hospitals.
"She has to tell them she will not sign any of their initiatives into law until they support her signature subway initiative," said Sliwa.
He also claimed that the MTA further spurred on violent crime by allowing fare evasion to "explode to the point where 30% of subway riders don't pay their fare."
"The governor must get control back of who comes in and out of the system," he said. "Without control of who comes in then all of the other gubernatorial initiatives will result in more tax money spent with little if any results. Everything will change when you restrict who comes into the subway."
New York Council member Joe Borelli, a Republican, meanwhile, blamed Democrats for instituting soft-on-crime policies that have resulted in more violence in New York.
"Successive Democratic governors have closed mental health facilities and eroded the very same system she is now saying we need," Borelli told Fox News Digital. "What we really need to do is look at the bail reform and ‘raise the age’ laws her party put into effect in 2019 and see how the trajectory of criminal behavior increased thereafter."
