In January, a sleeping rider was stabbed in the head with a screwdriver on New York City’s subway. A month before that, a police officer fended off five homeless men who attacked him on a train platform. And on Sunday afternoon, a man was fatally shot at a subway station in Queens, the first murder on the system in more than a year.
The subway has come a long way since the dark days of the 1980s and 1990s when violence was rampant and riders felt constant dread. The system has become very safe, with just one murder on the subway last year compared with 26 in 1990.
But lately, riders are starting to feel less safe on the subway, a belief that is often reinforced by a flood of complaints about the transit system, doled out in real time on social media.
The shooting in Queens on Sunday was captured on Twitter in a graphic video showing a struggle between several men who had stepped out of a southbound 7 train at the 90th Street-Elmhurst Avenue station around 12:45 p.m.
