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      Subway Death in NYC Gives Insight Into the City’s Challenges

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      The man charged with shoving a man from a subway platform had a violent history, according to officials. The man who died was recovering from his own troubled past, his family said.Before the paths of Jason Volz and Carlton McPherson collided in a terrible moment on a Harlem subway platform on Monday, their lives had seemed to be heading in opposite directions.Mr. McPherson had been hospitalized at least half a dozen times since last year for mental health treatment, according to someone who has seen some of his medical records. A neighbor in the Bronx said he sometimes slept in a hallway closet in his grandmother’s building because she would not let him into her apartment. Last October, a man whom prosecutors believe to be Mr. McPherson — he had the same name and birth year — was charged with beating a Brooklyn homeless shelter employee with a cane.Mr. Volz, 54, was recovering from addiction and had also endured homelessness, but had gotten sober two years ago and had just moved into a new apartment, his ex-wife said.On Monday night, the police say, Mr. McPherson, 24, walked up to Mr. Volz on the uptown platform of the 125th Street station on Lexington Avenue and shoved him in front of an oncoming No. 4 train.Responding police officers, who had been on another part of the platform, found him lifeless beneath the train. His death was a recurrence of the ultimate New York City nightmare, and another example of the difficulty of preventing violence on the subway despite years of efforts by state and city authorities to keep people struggling with severe mental illness out of the transit system.Mayor Eric Adams, who has watched crime in the subway largely defy his attempts to rein it in, sounded a note of defeat on Tuesday, acknowledging that the presence of police officers had not been enough to stop Monday’s attack.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Man Killed by Train After He Is Pushed Onto Subway Tracks, Police Say

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      The attack at 125th Street in East Harlem was unprovoked, a police spokeswoman said, and a man is in custody.A man was killed Monday evening after being pushed onto the subway tracks in an unprovoked attack at the 125th Street station at Lexington Avenue in East Harlem, according to the Police Department.At 6:48 p.m., a man on the uptown platform shoved the person onto the tracks in front of the oncoming No. 4 train, which was unable to stop, a police spokeswoman said. The suspected attacker is in custody, according to the spokeswoman. The police did not identify either the victim or the suspect.Train service at the station resumed by 9 p.m., but a large number of police officers remained at the scene. “The subway has been insane lately,” Ray Velez, 60, from the Bronx, said as he waited on the 125th St. platform two hours after the attack. “You have to look everywhere now. It’s just out of control.”The attack is the latest in a series of violent episodes that have led officials to increase the police presence in the subway and seek to reassure New Yorkers that the system is safe. Earlier this month, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that she would deploy the National Guard and the State Police into the system to increase security and ease New Yorkers’ fears. But less than two weeks after Ms. Hochul’s announcement, a fight on the A train that ended with a shooting reinforced the difficulties of policing every inch of the sprawling system. In that confrontation, captured in a dramatic video recorded by a passenger, a man who had been menacing a rider was first stabbed and then shot with his own handgun. Karla Marie Sanford contributed reporting. More

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      After Another Subway Shooting, NYC Wrestles With Question of Safety

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      Even with the National Guard patrolling the system, some New Yorkers say they don’t feel secure, particularly after the subway shooting in Brooklyn on Thursday. Others remain unfazed.The subway crime that Jimmy Sumampow had been hearing about in recent years — as well as his own experience — had already led him to make plans to leave New York City. Then, on Friday, he saw a video online of the shooting on an A train this week.“I’m scared,” said Mr. Sumampow, 46, after seeing the video. Mr. Sumampow lives in Elmhurst, Queens, but plans to board an Amtrak train on Monday for Florida, where he has a new job and an apartment lined up. “I feel I should move out for a while and see if New York takes action and gets better,” he said.For Elise Anderson, however, the shooting did not raise her level of concern.“I wouldn’t say I’m any more scared,” Ms. Anderson, a 27-year-old Brooklyn resident, said as she waited at the Port Authority Bus Terminal subway station on Friday for a downtown A train. “I think we’re in one of the safest cities in the world.”In interviews across the city this week, New Yorkers wrestled with a question that cut to the core of the city’s identity: Is the subway system safe? Subway crime data in recent years shows a muddled picture, and just as they have in surveys of riders and polls of residents, New Yorkers’ opinions diverge.But barely more than a week after Gov. Kathy Hochul sent the National Guard and State Police into the subway to increase security and help ease New Yorkers’ fears, the shooting seemed to underscore the limits of law enforcement’s ability to improve safety underground.The episode took place at the Hoyt-Schermerhorn station, where the Police Department maintains an outpost, Transit District 30, that is regularly staffed by officers. Moments before the shooting, two additional officers entered the station to inspect the platforms and train cars, Kaz Daughtry, the Police Department’s deputy commissioner of operations, said at a news conference on Friday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Subway Cameras Led to Arrests in Bronx D Train Shooting, NYPD Says

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      Investigators say that an early morning argument on a D train last week ended with the fatal shooting of William Alvarez, 45.The police on Monday said footage from a surveillance camera in a subway car helped lead to the arrests of three people in connection with the fatal shooting of a 45-year-old man last week.Justin Herde, 24, Alfredo Trinidad, 42, and Betty Cotto, 38, were in custody in connection with the killing of William Alvarez, 45, of the Bronx, according to the New York Police Department.Mr. Alvarez was riding a southbound D train around 5 a.m. on Friday morning when the three suspects boarded at the Fordham Road station and got into an argument with him, the police said. Mr. Alvarez was shot in the chest, Michael M. Kemper, the Police Department’s chief of transit, said at a Monday news conference. Chief Kemper added that Mr. Alvarez’s attackers fled the train at the 182nd-183rd Streets station.About 1,000 of the system’s roughly 6,500 cars are equipped with cameras, part of a broader effort begun in 2022 by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which plans to install cameras in the rest of the cars by the end of this year.Killings on the subway are rare, but attract intense public attention. This year there have been two other fatal incidents in the system. Earlier this month, a 35-year-old man was killed and five other people were wounded in a shooting at the Mount Eden Avenue station in the Bronx during the evening rush hour. And in January, a 45-year-old father of three was shot on a No. 3 train in Brooklyn after intervening in an argument.Transit leaders are under intense pressure to bring ridership back to prepandemic levels, and making the system feel safe is critical to that mission. Ridership rose by about 3 percent in January, hovering on average at about 3 million daily passengers. In 2019, daily ridership was about 5 million.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      15-Year-Old Arrested in Times Square Shooting That Injured a Tourist

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      The teen, Jesus Alejandro Rivas Figueroa, is accused of firing at a security guard and instead hitting a woman from Brazil.A 15-year-old boy was arrested on Friday, accused of shooting a Brazilian tourist in Times Square the night before and then firing twice at a police officer while fleeing the scene, officials said.The arrest came about an hour after the police said at a news conference that they were seeking the teenager, Jesus Alejandro Rivas Figueroa, in the shooting of the tourist, a 37-year-old woman who was hit once in the leg. Her injury was not life-threatening, and she had left the hospital as of Friday afternoon, the police said.Police officials said the teenager was from Venezuela and had been staying at a Manhattan migrant shelter following his arrival in New York last fall, one person among the tens of thousands of people who have come to the city after crossing into the United States at the southern border.He was taken into custody in Yonkers, officials said. He is also considered a suspect in an armed robbery in the Bronx and a second shooting in Times Square last month, said John Chell, the Police Department’s chief of patrol.Mr. Figueroa, a second 15-year-old and a 16-year-old were trying to steal items from a JD Sports store on Broadway near West 42nd Street at around 7 p.m. Thursday when they were stopped by a female security guard, Chief Chell said at the news conference.Mr. Figueroa pulled out what the chief described as a “very large handgun” and fired at the security guard, striking the tourist in the process. He then ran off, firing at an officer as he went. Given the crowds in the area at the time, officers did not fire back.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      On Live TV, Guardian Angels Tackle Man Sliwa Misidentified as Migrant

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      “We’ve got to take back 42nd Street,” Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the anti-crime group, said on “Hannity” as the Guardian Angels pushed a man to the ground.The Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa was being interviewed live from Times Square on Tuesday night by the Fox News host Sean Hannity when their exchange took a startling turn.The topic was what both men seemed to agree was a migrant-fueled wave of crime and chaos that they claimed had overtaken New York amid a surge of arrivals into the city from the southern border over the past two years.Suddenly, Mr. Sliwa had a prime-time example. As he spoke, the half-dozen red-jacketed Angels flanking him slipped out of the frame.“Our guys have just taken down one of the migrant guys right here on the corner of 42nd and Seventh where all this is taking place,” Mr. Sliwa said, pointing off camera.“Can you pan the camera?” Mr. Hannity asked his cameraman.The cameraman swung around and captured the Angels confronting a slightly built man in a hooded sweatshirt, throwing him to the ground and putting him in a headlock.“He is out of control,” Mr. Sliwa said as the camera turned away and Mr. Hannity shifted to criticizing President Biden over his administration’s border policies.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Queens Man Who Pushed Officer Over Ledge on Jan. 6 Sentenced to 6 Years

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      The sentencing judge called Ralph Joseph Celentano III’s attack on the police officer amid the Capitol riot a “truly cowardly and despicable thing to do.”A Queens man who tackled a police officer and pushed him over a ledge during the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced this week to six and a half years in prison, court records show.The man, Ralph Joseph Celentano III, 56, of Broad Channel, was sentenced on Tuesday, according to court records. A jury convicted him last June on two felony counts — assaulting, resisting or impeding an officer, and interference with officers during a civil disorder — and several misdemeanor counts, court records show.In sentencing Mr. Celentano, the Justice Department said in a news release, Judge Timothy J. Kelly of Federal District Court in Washington called his actions during the riot “disgraceful” and his assault on the officer “a truly cowardly and despicable thing to do.”Mr. Celentano is among more than 1,265 people to be charged in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, according to the Justice Department. He and other supporters of former President Donald J. Trump stormed the Capitol in a bid to prevent the certification of Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. A federal investigation into the day’s events is continuing.Mr. Trump, who is seeking the Republican nomination in this year’s presidential election, faces federal conspiracy and other charges arising from the riot. He has pleaded not guilty.A federal public defender representing Mr. Celentano did not immediately respond to a request for comment.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Ex-Top Editor of The Jewish Press Pleads Guilty to Jan. 6 Charge

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      Elliot Resnick, a longtime journalist at The Jewish Press, admitted that he impeded officers’ efforts to keep a mob from storming the U.S. Capitol.A onetime top editor of an Orthodox Jewish newspaper in Brooklyn pleaded guilty on Tuesday to obstructing police officers’ efforts to hold off the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.The editor, Elliot Resnick, entered the plea, to a felony count of obstructing law enforcement during a civil disorder, before Judge Rudolph Contreras of Federal District Court in Washington. Mr. Resnick, 40, of Manhattan, is scheduled to be sentenced in June.Clay Kaminski, a federal public defender who is representing Mr. Resnick, declined to comment.At the time of the riot, Mr. Resnick was the top editor of The Jewish Press, which began publishing in 1960 and describes itself on its website as “the largest independent weekly Jewish newspaper in the United States” and “politically incorrect long before the phrase was coined.”After Politico reported in April 2021 that Mr. Resnick, who began working at The Jewish Press in 2006, had been part of the Jan. 6 mob, the paper’s editorial board published a statement saying he had been in Washington to cover the day’s events as a journalist.“The Jewish Press does not see why Elliot’s personal views on former President Trump should make him any different from the dozens of other journalists covering the events, including many inside the Capitol building during the riots,” the editorial board wrote.Citing court records, Justice Department officials said on Tuesday that Mr. Resnick had not been acting as a journalist that day. Shlomo Greenwald, who replaced Mr. Resnick as the paper’s top editor in May 2021, did not respond to email and phone inquiries on Tuesday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More