{"id":377269,"date":"2026-10-19T21:36:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T21:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/377269\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T21:36:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T21:36:19","slug":"blakeman-rides-the-subway-as-he-rails-against-hochul-over-nyc-transit-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/377269\/","title":{"rendered":"Blakeman rides the subway as he rails against Hochul over NYC transit violence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republican Bruce Blakeman took to the rails Monday \u2014 as he slammed Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani for not doing enough to keep commuters safe after New York City recorded its seventh subway homicide<\/a> this year.<\/p>\n

The gubernatorial candidate rode the LIRR to Penn Station before hopping on an E train to the 53rd Street\/7th Avenue station, where a 26-year-old man heading to his job as a security guard<\/a> was gunned down Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are not committed to public safety,\u201d Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, railed about Hochul and Mamdani, saying they have dropped the ball on subway crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst of all, the crime on the subway has risen tremendously under Kathy Hochul and Zohran Mamdani,\u201d he claimed, adding, \u201cI will be committed to public safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman speaks to reporters inside Penn Station. Kevin Sheehan\/NY Post<\/p>\n

Blakeman rides the LIRR to Penn Station after a murder on the subways. Dennis A. Clark for NY Post<\/p>\n

Blakeman vowed to ramp up police presence on the subways, increase the number of train conductors and improve lighting on the transit system, if elected on November 3.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to clean up our train stations,\u201d he told reporters, also bemoaning the scourge of mentally ill people who he said \u201cprey on people in the subways.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI will make sure that public transportation is safer and cleaner for the traveling public,\u201d he promised. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s how you get more people back in public transportation, not by putting a tax on them,\u201d he said, referring to the congestion pricing scheme Hochul and the MTA launched, charging drivers an extra $9 to enter Manhattan below 60th Street.<\/p>\n

The subway stunt comes on the heels of the midday shooting death of Darrel Rodriguez<\/a>, a security guard from The Bronx who was gunned down while on his way home from work, according to police and law-enforcement sources.<\/p>\n

Police have launched a manhunt for the suspected killer \u2014 seen in surveillance images wearing a red tracksuit, a black vest and a black face mask \u2014 and described him as armed and dangerous.<\/p>\n

After the LIRR, Blakeman hopped on the E train and headed up town to the same station where a deadly shooting just took place. Kevin Sheehan\/NY Post<\/p>\n

Blakeman slammed Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani over subway crime. Dennis A. Clark for NY Post<\/p>\n

Charlton D\u2019Souza, president of transit advocacy group Passengers United, called for a ban on face coverings in the subways in the aftermath of the shooting, similar to the one on ski masks that Philadelphia enacted in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m angry because in many ways this tragedy could have been prevented,\u201d he said on Sunday. \u201cWhere is Governor Kathy Hochul? Where is our mayor?\u201d<\/p>\n

Blakeman, who signed a mask ban in Nassau County in 2024 that only exempts face covers for health or religious reasons, said a similar measure in the Big Apple would make sense.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s worked out very well,\u201d he said Monday. \u201cThere is no reason wy someone should be hiding their identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The brazen killing at a Midtown station packed with tourists was the seventh in the system so far this year<\/a>, nearly doubling the four transit homicides over the same time span last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite historic lows in major crimes in the city over the past year, transit crimes have continued to creep upward, with felony assaults and thefts in the subways increasing so far in 2026, NYPD stats show.<\/p>\n

NYPD crime data released Monday shows that, through Sunday, transit crimes were up 1.7% so far this year, to 1,738 from 1,708 in 2025, including a jump in felony assaults \u2014 which runs counter to an overall 6.6% dip in major crimes citywide, including a nearly 20% drop in murders.<\/p>\n

Hochul, who is seeking a second, four-year term in November, fired back that she has helped make the city safer. Robert Miller for NY Post<\/p>\n

Ongoing concern over subway crime prompted Hochul to deploy the National Guard and state troopers<\/a> to the underground in 2024 \u2014 a total of 750 guardsmen and 250 troopers temporarily assigned to the busiest stations in the city.<\/p>\n

But with transit crime inching back up, Blakeman seized on it to put heat on Hochul and Mamdani \u2014 and sell his message to voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he stands for what we believe in,\u201d said Gelena Oren, 47, a Five Towns resident who shook hands with the pol at the Jamaica Station.<\/p>\n

Oren said the most important issue in the governor\u2019s race was: \u201cSupporting people and making sure we feel safe. Safety is really, really important.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to look back to see who\u2019s behind me,\u201d Oren added. \u201cMr. Blakeman here could definitely protect us a little bit more then the protection we have now. That\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blakeman shook hands with voters at the Jamaica Station. Kevin Sheehan\/NY Post<\/p>\n

Blakeman claimed that even Democrats were shunning Hochul and backing him, as he also criticized the incumbent governor for the state\u2019s high taxes that has New Yorkers fleeing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Democrats are getting wise and every day another Democrat endorses me and every day a Democrat comes to me and says \u2018I never voted Republican in my life but I\u2019m voting for you this year. Our party has gone nuts,’\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A rep for Hochul\u2019s re-election campaign fired back that the governor has helped make the city safer.<\/p>\n

\u201cGovernor Hochul took office with crime spiking and the subways deserted, invested a record $4 billion in policing, put boots on the ground in our subways, and brought subway crime to its lowest level in 16 years,\u201d the statement said. <\/p>\n

\u201cGovernor Hochul\u2019s work keeping New Yorkers safe is never finished, but the results are impossible to ignore \u2014 unless you\u2019re Donald Trump\u2019s puppet, Bruce Blakeman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hochul\u2019s office added that 1,000 National Guard troops are still dedicated to the Empire State Shield initiative and coordinate with the NYPD and the MTA daily for subway security assignments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2014 Additional reporting by Kalohe Danbara and Vaughn Golden<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republican Bruce Blakeman took to the rails Monday \u2014 as he slammed Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1626,303,416,426,57,9,11,10,13895,1687,58],"class_list":["post-377269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-bruce-blakeman","tag-crime","tag-elections","tag-kathy-hochul","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-ny-governor-election-2026","tag-subways","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}