Nothing like a good manhunt to help raise the issue of ... why we have so many cops (NY Post). Our force is bloated — we have 613 police employees per 100,000 population, the most of any large city except metro Washington, according to ProPublica — yet still needed the help of the feds, the suspect Frank James himself, and new toast of the town Zack Tahhan to collar the alleged shooter in Tuesday's subway attack and end the 24-hour manhunt. Tahhan quickly became the story of the day, thanks to his acuity and heroism ...
... and on-camera skills:
But good police work is good police work, and congratulations are certainly warranted for the NYPD for apprehending the suspect.
Meanwhile, the incident manifestly did not terrorize New Yorkers, who still rode the subway in respectable numbers yesterday and even after the shooting on Tuesday, when (inconveniently for the NYPD) then at-large James did, too!
"We got him!" exclaimed Mayor Adams, who has pledged to double the number of cops deployed to the subway, as if it were humanly possible constantly to patrol all 248 miles of routes and 472 stations. (Of course, it would help a lot on that score if the majority of cops lived in the five boroughs and took transit to work, but they don't.) He also raised the possibility of metal detectors in the subways. But the Kabuki theater of our municipal government goes on, as the NYPD hupped to its marching orders, tweeting out pictures of cops on the beat (and not on their phones, as most of us routinely see them):
In other (and sometimes related) news:
- Please fix the subway cameras, MTA! (NY Post, NYDN, NY Times, CBS News)
- Jammed emergency doors on the trains also impeded escape in the attack. (NYDN)
- The Wall Street Journal canvassed employers on the attack, finding that they worried that it would hamper workers' return to the office.
- Here's a test for NYPD Commissioner Sewell: The Civilian Complaint Review Board recommended charges against cops who rammed their cruiser into Black Lives Matter protesters in Brooklyn in 2020, a story we were pursuing, but Gothamist and the Daily News got.
- Former federal transit man Larry Penner excoriated the DOT for leaving millions in federal money on the table (BxTimes) and the MTA for the same thing (Shorefront News).
- The War on Cars visited the New York Auto Show and found a lot of models realistically parked in fake crosswalks. Episode to come!
