By Gus Saltonstall
A straphanger was riding a train in the middle of the day recently on the Upper West Side when a man attempted to rob him at knifepoint, police said on Wednesday.
The 48-year-old man was aboard a southbound 2 train about 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, when a man approached him, flashed a knife, and demanded money, police said.
The attempted robber also used an unspecified ethnic slur toward the victim, police added.
The man wasn’t able to take any belongings from the 48-year-old, and he fled in an unknown direction, NYPD said. There were also no reported injuries.
Police describe the suspect as 5 foot, 9 inches, with a medium build.
Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).
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Thank you WSR for your continued diligence. We know you love this neighborhood as much as we do and it’s such a shame to see it deteriorate in the manner that it is. While we have a long road ahead, let’s hope that cooler heads prevail and we can collectively agree to elect officials who are steadfast in their determination to address quality of life issues at the forefront.
Except this incident and many other complicated societal trends (such as short term crime rates) have little or nothing to do with specific elected officials.
Yes, they do. These are repeat offenders. No one wakes up in middle age and decides to become a criminal. It starts young. These perps are released over and over again onto our streets with no penalty for their crimes. That is because of all the bad legislation passed by our City and State legislators, including “raise the age” of culpability, “bail reform,” etc. It is also because some of the DAs refuse to prosecute or downgrade crimes to carry little to no prison time, fines, etc. Crime is NOT complex and not “societal trends.” It’s NOT about poverty, education, jobs, or opportunities, or anything like that. ALL socio-economic groups, races, creeds, colors, religions, etc. commit crimes. It has to do with NO penalties and sociopathic personalities. I’ve been studying this for 50 years and working professionally as a civilian in law enforcement for 27 years.
What does bail reform have to do with sentencing, again?
SO much to pick apart here, aside from your obvious callousness. But maybe, someone with 50 YEARS working as a professional in law enforcement, you could fight this fight in your own office/precinct/DA office you work in instead of in the comments section. I don’t need a self-professed “expert” to educate me about what life has taught me, and that is,, crime IS complex, and most of these people suffer from sever mental illness, which will NEVER be sufficiently addressed by people in law enforcement, especially when they seem to lack any kind of compassion, and zero professional integrity.
If you talk to the 24th precinct officers, they are all compassionate and try their best.
You should be blaming the politicians that are taking billions of dollars away from dealing with the mentally ill EVERYWHERE on our streets. They are giving money to THEIR causes and what “looks good”. They could have built a mental illness hospital with thousands of beds if they cared to with the money they have already been using the last 2 years.
No one to blame but ourselves. We voted for those that destroyed the quality of life on the UWS. We got what we asked for.
The quality of life in the UWS has never been better. Stop clutching your pearls and pick yourself up off the floor, for crying out loud.
Our elected representatives are too busy passing the ludicrous “How Many Stops Act,” rather than enabling the police to prevent this madness.
Just watch for those cool shoes! Look down, not up, and you’ll find the culprit.