Mayor Adams on Thursday applauded a drone initiative that’s aimed at cracking down on subway surfing, following the deaths of six people this year, including two teens who perished while subway surfing just in the past week.
Adams touted the NYPD’s drone program as a way the city is working to prevent more deaths.
“We will see the lives that are lost, but rarely do you get the medal for the lives that are saved,” the mayor said at a press conference outside a Queens school near the aboveground No. 7 train. “And these offices and this team and this technology is saving lives.”
The aerial drone program started last year as a pilot initiative and was made permanent this June, NYPD officials said.
The NYPD has two drones that are put to work during the after-school hours from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. flying above the J, M, Z and 7 subway lines to alert officers on the ground if a subway surfer is spotted. The officers then apprehend the daredevils at a subway station and take them into custody.
Since the program started a year ago, 114 people have been brought in after being flagged subway surfing by the drones. Around 40 of those people had been arrested more than once for subway surfing, officials said.
“They have labeled these as apprehensions. We’re labeling them as lives saved,” NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry said.
Norma Nazario, whose 15-year-old son, Zackery Nazario, died last year subway surfing, called on platforms like TikTok — on which teens post viral videos recorded atop trains — to take action.
“The social media companies need to step up, take these videos down and stop pushing harmful challenges to our kids,” Nazario said.
A 13-year-old girl, Krystel Romero, became the sixth person to die subway surfing this year after she and another teen on Sunday fell off a Manhattan-bound 7 train in Corona, Queens, and were run over by the train. Her friend was critically injured. Krystel’s death came less than a week after Adolfo Sorzano died the same way after falling off an M train in Ridgewood, Queens.
In September, an 11-year-old boy, Cayden Thompson, was killed subway surfing in Park Slope, Brooklyn — the youngest person to die from the dangerous stunt in recent memory.
The mayor and the MTA have for months requested that platforms like Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok remove the videos, and some companies have complied.
The city has also launched a public awareness campaign, with the cautionary slogan “Subway surfing kills — ride inside, stay alive,” about the dangers of subway surfing. The audio announcements, on-train ads, videos and animations created by Manhattan High School of Art and Design students have become a fixture in subway stations and on trains systemwide since the campaign began last fall.
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