So now everyone at Goldman Sachs knows that a colleague, 48-year-old Daniel Enriquez, was shot dead by a stranger while riding the subway from Sunday to mid-morning brunch, dying on the Q train.
How do you think this will work to bring bankers and other professionals back to Manhattan?
There have been 18 subway homicides since March 2020, each of which is a preventable tragedy. And each one is a message to the rest of New York that it’s dangerous to ride on the rails.
Traveling across the Manhattan Bridge from wealthy Sloop Park to wealthy Manhattan, Enriquez watched his work on a hum-ham ride. Then a man in the carriage, walking up and down, picked him up.
Was the suspect motivated by racial hostility, perceived lightness or nothing – who knows?
There was nothing Enriquez could do to prevent his own death except get on the subway.
In this, Enriquez has a grim posthumous relationship with Michel Go, the 40-year-old CEO of Deloitte, pushed by a stranger until his death under a train in Times Square in January. Like Enriquez, Go, once in the subway system, was defenseless.
Go’s death shocked her Deloitte colleagues, and Enriquez’s murder will do the same for people in the cohesive financial industry.
Daniel Enriquez is reported to have started riding the subway again just two weeks before the horrific shooting. The alleged shooter has nothing to do with Enriquez.
If you’re a white-collar worker, you can still make sure most of the time that you’re pretty safe from violent crime and that you can make yourself safer: Don’t wear your expensive watch outside. Do not wander the streets at 2 o’clock in the morning
So the more than 50 percent increase in homicides in the last two years hasn’t affected the Park-Slope-to-Tribeca mob in large part.
Except for subway crimes. Transit violence affects – literally, in this case – the lunch crowd. It’s so jingling because it’s almost completely random. In 16 of the 18 subway killings in 26 months, only two perpetrators are believed to have known their victims.
Michelle Go was pushed by a stranger to her death under a train in Times Square earlier this year.
Go and Enriquez represent half of this year’s victims of subway killings. It’s hard to remember last year that two professionals lost their lives to accidental subway violence during the day. But you will have to go back to – yes – the early 90’s.
Effects of COVID
Until COVID, the almost non-existence of violent crime in the subway was a substitute for the almost non-existence of truly accidental crime in the city. Between 1997 and 2019, one or two people a year were killed in the subway against nearly 2 billion passengers.
Before hitting COVID, it took 11 years – from 2009 to 2019 – for 18 people to lose their lives in the subway, the same number of lives lost after COVID.
So we’ve compressed more than a decade of subway homicides in a little over two years.
This is a dizzying change in public safety and a much bigger change than anything that is happening above the ground. We have moved from essentially risk-free to unpredictable but real risk.
Since March 2020, there have been 18 homicide victims in the subway.JCRice
If you are a researcher of wealthy investment banks, a corporate consultant, a lawyer or a technologist, it is completely rational to avoid the subway. 40% of the “missing” riders compared to 2019 are mostly people who do not have to take the train if they do not want to.
The Transit Advocacy community can say anything it wants that the train is still pretty safe if you’re not the unfortunate target that stands out for some reason as the crazy killer. But no one wants to risk being trapped between stops with an armed madman.
And as a friend of mine who avoids the subway recently told me, he’s not really worried about being killed. He’s just fed up with the constant harassment he’s almost certain about every ride.
There is no law and order
The mayor does what he can or some of what he can. Police enforcement of things like beating the fee has risen by 61% last month since last April. The number of civil subpoenas returns to pre-COVID levels.
Mayor Eric Adams encourages JPMorgan Chase boss Jamie Dimon to ride the subway. REUTERS
But the arrests continue. And people arrested by police on the subway, including for possession of weapons, are being returned to the streets by prosecutors, judges and lawmakers. The suspect in Enriquez’s death, Andrew Abdullah, has a long history of violence.
Last week, Mayor Adams called on JPMorgan Chase boss Jamie Dimon to take the train to set a good example. But Enriquez is an example seen by people working from home.
Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to the City Journal of the Manhattan Institute.
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