Blades are slicing through the Big Apple.
According to New York Police Department data requested by The Washington Post, there have been 3,582 stabbings and slashings in the city this year through Aug. 11, up 6 percent from 3,370 during the same period last year.
So far this year, 60 people have died from stabbings, up from 54 in 2023, an 11% increase.
“There’s no reason for this level of crime to continue,” Alton Scott, a veteran MTA conductor who was slashed in the neck in March, leaving him with a horrific wound that required 34 stitches, told The Washington Post.
His attacker is on the run.
In May, 17-year-old Sara Rivera was stabbed to death outside a subway station in Queens during a vicious argument with a friend, friends and relatives said.
Rivera was drinking with friends at a park near the 46th Street station in Sunnyside around 9:30 p.m. when he got into an argument with a 15-year-old acquaintance and was stabbed in the neck. The assailant, whose name has not been released, is in custody.
“Life has no value,” Sarah’s father, Eric Rivera, 50, told The Washington Post this week, calling the surge in stabbings “alarming” and teen-on-teen crime a “pandemic.”
“I want justice,” he said of his daughter’s killer. “I want the full extent of the law. I don’t see any remorse.”
An MTA conductor suffered a severe neck injury and required 34 stitches.
He spoke to The Washington Post after being laid off in March. TWU
Alcazar said the spike in stabbings was due to a “dramatic” increase in juvenile and gang crime, “unpredictable” and emotionally unstable people roaming the streets and an “influx” of immigrants who “are engaging in disorderly behavior, robberies and spontaneous fights.”, Former New York Police Department detective and adjunct professor at John Jay College of Law, He told the Post.
In February, a 17-year-old immigrant was stabbed in Times Square during a brawl involving dozens of people, including other immigrants.
“As the NYPD has become more strict on gun ownership, perpetrators have begun to carry knives instead,” Alcazar added.
In a subway station during a disastrous argument with a friend. Instagram @nyc.saraa
Alcazar’s John Jay colleague, former NYPD detective David Sarni, noted that while more people are carrying knives for protection, bad guys know that knives allow them to do their dirty work without attracting the same attention or jail time as a gun. “Knives are available everywhere… I’ve seen people who’ve been slashed and only realized they’d been slashed a block or so away,” he said.
A 27-year veteran of the New York Police Department said social media has added fuel to the fire, with young people settling “senseless disputes” with weapons. “There’s no de-escalation. Kids are no longer learning to be social,” he said.
Sarni said a woke City Council won’t help things improve.
“I’ve watched the City Council hearings and I’m not impressed with this behavior. They seem to be focused on the moment they ‘beat’ the police department, rather than ‘What can we do to stem the tide of violence in our neighborhoods? How can we address our students?'”
In June, a 39-year-old man was stabbed in the neck at a Milo coffee shop in Manhattan, but brave customers and staff fought off the ruthless attackers and the victim survived.
Wanda, who works at a coffee shop on Amsterdam Avenue near West 181st Street, blames the mentally ill and immigrants for the rise in infections. “They don’t have jobs, they want money, they get in trouble.”
She added: “We’re seeing things we’ve never seen before – people being robbed of their mobile phones, people being robbed of their jewellery.”
“You’re not even safe at work.”
The NYPD said arrests for stabbings and slashings are up 11% this year (2,668) compared to 2023 (2,411).
