Is There a News Blackout?

A Transit Police official once brazenly admitted (scroll down) to a reporter that they did not routinely report the occurrence of serious crimes. Recently, they seem to have implemented a complete news blackout on violent deaths in the system; the routine reporting of "accidents" by DNAinfo which was prevalent in 2012 and prior years slowed in 2013 and ceased completely in 2014. Initially I found this sudden adoption of a blackout puzzling. But having learned recently that some surveillance cameras are now present in the system, the blackout makes sense.

Following the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center the MTA faced a new potential problem: a terrorist attack of the subway. An attack would be a much bigger problem than individual unwitnessed homicides committed by common thugs.  And it could not be "managed" by news suppression. 

These newly installed cameras create a problem for MTA officials. If they and the NYPD have, for many years, deliberately ignored the probability of track homicides, the new cameras would record, not lone passengers volunteering to descend to the tracks, but victims forced off platforms by thugs.

With cameras scanning likely crime scenes, journalists could ask to see the tapes and lawyers for victims families could request that courts order their release.

If I am wrong and the MTA is not effectively covering up homicides, one would expect them to have continued informing the media of track deaths and inviting journalists to look at the tapes showing that the deaths really were accidental.

But if I am right and the MTA/NYPD know that the deaths they've been blaming on the victims were most likely homicides, then imposition of a complete news blackout makes sense. If journalists do not know that someone has been killed they could not ask to see the tape.

Moreover, if surveillance cameras routinely record over earlier images, the evidence of a crime would soon be lost forever.  

My conclusion: the reported decrease of annual unwitnessed track deaths from twenty-five in 2012 to zero in 2014 is the result of deliberate news suppression by the authorities. 

MTA/NYPD to New Yorkers: Carry Your Own Surveillance Camera!

This is a photo of a man the NYPD suspects slapped the "behind" of a female passenger on a subway train.

It is not the product of an MTA surveillance camera.

It was taken by the victim.

So, unlike transit passengers in other cities (including Moscow!) are forewarned: the authorities make it extremely difficult to apprehend criminals. They do that by minimizing surveillance cameras.

 

Putting Cameras Where Crimes Do Not Happen

The NYPD has released this photo of a man wanted for slashing a woman in "the world's safest subway system" (/sarcasm.)

I suppose we should be pleased that a subway assault has even been reported in the media and we should hope that the photo of him in a turnstile leads to his arrest, but why is there no video of the actual attack?
 

Three Subway Crimes ... but No Surveillance Photos

1. Man Groped 12-year-Old Boy on N Train, Police Say

2. Knife-Wielding Thief Snatches Woman's Bag as She Rides the 1 Train: NYPD

3. Quick-Thinking Victim Snaps Picture of Groper on 4 Train, Police Say

Once again the MTA/NYPD demonstrates it is less concerned about protecting passengers from criminals, less concerned about identifying criminals so they might be arrested than the managers of subways in Philadelphia, Washington DC and Moscow, Russia.

NYPD Releases Video of a Crime!

A street crime.

Not a subway crime.

Crimes do not occur in the New York subway system.

At least, no crimes that are recorded by NYPD videos and released to the media.

Surveillance Camera in Subway Car Records an Assault

In Chicago.

Not in New York.

Never in New York.

The New York Daily News reports these not-in-New-York surveillance camera stories but their editors never complain about the lack of cameras in the world's largest mass transit system.

Attack on a Subway Platform Recorded on Surveillance Video!

In Philadelphia.

Never in New York.

Possible reasons:

Either ...

1. New York's MTA and the NYPD run the most crime-free mass transit system in the world.

 ... OR ...

2. New York's MTA with the eager assistance of the NYPD operate the Western world's*  most successful suppression of "unpleasant" news.

*North Korea may be more suppressive.

See it: Mob of teenagers beats two high school students in Philadelphia subway station.

Does New York have a single video surveillance camera pointed at subway platforms?

Moscow, Philadelphia and Washington DC have Surveillance Cameras

New York subway riders are just as decent and as brave as the DC passengers who rescued a man who accidentally drove his motorized wheelchair off the platform and down to the dangerous Metro tracks.

But New York City's MTA managers, unlike the people in charge of the DC Metro, has made sure there are no cameras in place recording activity 24/7 on platforms. In my opinion they would not like those cameras because they would also record attacks by criminals on passengers. Without the cameras the MTA can continue to blame the victims of track homicides.

Here's a surveillance photo of the man tumbling onto the tracks. Note that the photo is copyrighted by the Washington Area Metro Transit Authority.

Here's a link where you can watch the surveillance video of the rescue.

When will the MTA catch up with other cities?

When will New York's media even notice how dismally their city's subway compares to other cities in the matter of surveillance?








 

Philadelphia Subway Has What The MTA Does Not

Once again news is made in a subway system equipped with surveillance cameras pointing at platforms.

Not a crime this time but a rescue of a passenger who fell to the tracks.

Have the wonderful people who run the New York system's MTA ever released surveillance tapes of any newsworthy event?

Does anyone holding an important position in any of New York's vaunted media care that his city's transit system continues to lag behind all others?

Are camera's lacking in New York's system because the MTA and the NYPD do not want tapes released of unwitnessed fatal "accidents" that were really homicides?

Philadelphia Subway Crime Video

Not only does the management of the Moscow subway release videos of crimes occurring in their system so do the people in charge of Philadelphia's system.

But New York's MTA is unrelenting in its utter contempt for the safety of passengers.

Cameras would make life difficult for two classes of people that MTA management obviously considers more important than fare-paying passengers: its own lawyers and violence-prone criminals.

The New York system has lots of cameras pointing at turnstiles where petty criminals might cheat the MTA out of petty sums if they avoid paying fares. 

But when it comes to protecting passengers from violent criminals the MTA and the NYPD show by their actions what they consider important ... and what they do not.