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A group of bipartisan lawmakers have asked New York’s metropolitan transit authority why many subway cameras were down when a gunman opened fire on a Brooklyn subway station earlier this month, injuring nearly 30 people.
In a letter to MTA President Janno Lieber on Wednesday, nearly a dozen lawmakers said Lieber should be more transparent in the way the agency uses federal funds to secure the subway system and protect drivers.
In this photo from a video on social media, passengers escape from a subway car at a station in the Brooklyn district of New York, Tuesday, April 12, 2022 (Will B Wylde via AP)
They noted that there are more than 10,000 cameras under the control of the MTA, with 600 at stations on line N, where the shooting took place on April 12, when the train entered the 36th Street subway station. The MTA confirmed that cameras at three Brooklyn stations did not work during the mass shooting.
Lawmakers said the MTA has received nearly $ 50 million in federal funds over the past two fiscal years and asked to know how the money was spent.
THE ATTACK IN THE NEWK SUBRO
They asked how much of this funding was allocated specifically to the MTA camera, including system maintenance, camera installation and camera upgrades. They also wanted to know how often the cameras are audited by an MTA or a third party.
“With an average of over 2 million passengers a day, the subway system is the lifeblood of New York,” they wrote. “Although the suspect responsible for this attack has been arrested, it is imperative that we have systems in place to keep riders safe and ensure that such attacks never happen again.
They requested the MTA to provide written answers to these questions no later than 30 April 2022.
People traveled to their workplace on the New York subway on April 13, 2022, a day after people were injured in a rush hour shooting in New York’s Brooklyn neighborhood. (ANGELA WEIS / AFP via Getty Images)
MTA Chief of External Relations John McCarthy told Fox News that the agency plans to provide lawmakers with a “detailed answer”.
“We have made significant use of the Transit Security Grant Program, but we were disappointed that funding has been at the same level as in 2012, after a significant decline. As New York City police said last week, MTA video and other evidence across the transit system provided critical support for the investigation and detention of a subway shooting suspect last week, “McCarthy said.
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“The NYPD Domain Information System relies on live broadcasts from 5,100 MTA cameras and an additional 5,000 cameras recording locally throughout the subway system, which are used dozens of times a day to identify specific incidents, crimes and perpetrators.
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