How Many Teens in NYC Have to Die From Subway Surfing Before a Change Is Made?
A fourteen-year-old boy and his friend were subway surfing on a Coney Island-bound F train at 2:20 pm on Friday afternoon.
The teen fell off the train and onto the tracks near the Avenue N station in Midwood. A train was unable to stop and killed the teen.
Transit President Richard Davey responded that an innocent life was lost. (See here) THAT’S IT? Why isn’t Davey telling us what will be done to stop this from happening again?
Davey doesn’t care because it isn’t his child. In 2022, the MTA shared that 928 people were observed riding on the outside of the train, while other years there was only 200 people. (Source) Richard Davey should have taken action by now!
Last year, five teens were killed while train surfing in NYC and Richard Davey didn’t take action because no one is outraged.
1) February 2023 -Kavon Wooden, 15 -years-old – killed at Delancy Street. (Source)
2) February 2023 – Zachary Nazario, 15 yrs. old, was subway surfing on a Manhattan-bound J train. His girlfriend saw him die. (Source)
3) May 2023 – A 15-year-old from Staten Island died. (Source)
4) June 28th – Jevon Fraser, a 14-year-old from Queens died subway surfing. (Source)
5) June 22nd -Brian Crespo, a 14-year-old from Brooklyn died subway surfing. (Source)
“According to data compiled by the MTA in 2022, incidents of people riding on top of, in between or anywhere outside subway cars quadrupled from the previous year in New York City.” (Source)
A news reporter interviewed a teen in Midwood and the teenager said, “Who can you blame but the kid?”
Now we are blaming a child for adults not keeping them safe?
The rational part of a child’s brain is not fully developed. Do you notice that all of these boys are 14 or 15 years old? They were looking for an adventure after school. Do you remember being that age and feeling invincible?
Please don’t blame the child’s parents. This boy’s mother had no idea that the the top of the train is accessible to people!
NYPD has patrols on the subway and they use drones to watch the trains.
The patrols and drones are not enough because teens are still dying!
The MTS either needs to install sensors or cameras to the top of the trains, so the train operator (formerly called motorman) can see or is alerted that their is a teen or group of teens on the top of the train.
Lobbyists are thriving in Brooklyn, so why haven’t any of them strategize on this yet? There has to be a group who has a camera or sensor solution for this. And there has to be a greedy, but out-of-touch politician somewhere who doesn’t know this is a problem.
BROOKLYN – ANOTHER CHILD DIED – DO SOMETHING – DO ANYTHING! Parents, call for a change!
Hugs,
marlene
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