NYC subway assaults up 19%, with police officers often targeted
More subway riders have reported being punched, kicked and stabbed so far this year than last — and many of them were police officers, the NYPD said.
Felony assault is up 19% in transit, from 214 incidents at this point in 2025, to 255 as of Sunday, according to NYPD statistics.
Out of the 255 assaults so far this year, 93 — or 36% — were on city police officers and MTA workers. In the same span of 2019, 44 of the 154 people assaulted — or nearly 30% — were performing law enforcement duties, the spokesperson said.
5 Andrew Pashinin, 19, was arrested for allegedly shoving a man onto Brooklyn subway tracks in December — and told reporters he did it because the victim 'said mean things' to him.
Gregory P. Mango
Such incidents have skyrocketed a stunning 66% when compared to 2019, before the pandemic, when 154 straphangers reported being assaulted.
Retired NYPD detective and John Jay College adjunct professor Michael Alcazar blamed the uptick in assaults on the number of mentally ill in the subway and the criminal justice system.
'It's all these things, the homeless population, the EDPs (Emotionally Disturbed People), the warmer weather, prosecutors not able to keep them in jail,' he said. 'It emboldens the criminals. They get out and they're back at it the next day.'
5 Police released a photo of a man who allegedly pushed a 39-year-old victim onto the subway tracks at the Sutphin Boulevard and Archer Avenue subway station on May 22.
A woman-hating goon with 20 busts under his belt was the perfect example of a recidivist assaulter when he allegedly shoved a 70-year-old grandmother to the ground in a Midtown subway station on May 12.
'What are you doing here?' Sherlock Arana sneered at Janet Parvizyar, an LA resident before shoving her into a wall and to the floor, she said.
'I don't understand, why did they let them go like this,' Parvizyar told The Post after learning of her attacker's criminal history. 'I mean, they have to do something about this. He's going to kill somebody.'
5 MTA employees on a subway platform where a person was pushed into a train.
Gregory P. Mango
Arana, 37, was arrested two days later after cops recognized him. He remains locked up at Rikers Island correctional facility on a second degree assault charge in lieu of $45,000 bail, records show.
He pleaded guilty to assaulting two women inside separate Queens subway stations nearly a decade ago because he thought they were of Indian descent, prosecutors said. At least one was actually Bangladeshi.
The most recent of his nearly two dozen prior arrests was in 2023 for a robbery, law enforcement sources said. The disposition of the case was unknown.
5 Police released photos of a man who allegedly randomly pushed an elderly man onto the subway tracks at the 74th Street and Roosevelt Avenue station in Queens on April 23.
DCPI
The notable increase in assaults come as other transit crime has dropped 6% so far this year, including murders, shootings, robbery, burglaries and grand larcenies, the data showed.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch has attributed the crime drops in transit to an increased police presence underground, including the addition of two cops on every train overnight and hundreds more working overtime shifts.
A longtime Bronx police officer attributed the increase in assaults to mental illness and crowding on trains which have been busier since congestion pricing went into effect in January.
5 Police released photos of a man they said shoved a 33-year-old man onto the train tracks on Dec. 7, 2024, after a fight at the Atlantic Avenue- Barclays Center subway station.
DCPI
'You have a lot more unstable people who are on the trains,' the cop with more than 20 years on the job said. 'Congestion pricing plays a part because the trains are also more crowded.'
The police presence could also be adding to the uptick in the number of assaults, especially those against officers, a retired NYPD detective said.
'People don't like when police enforce drinking and minor offenses and they get aggressive,' the retired officer said.
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