#Felony assaults on subways up 30 percent over past month: MTA

Felony assaults in the subway system have spiked 30 percent over the past month — while cops were busy elsewhere in the city, MTA Chairman Pat Foye claimed in an interview Sunday morning.

“The NYPD has had its plate full the last couple of months. And as a result of that … felony assaults on the subways in the last 30 days were up approximately 30 percent,” Foye said on WABC 770 AM’s “The Cats Roundtable” radio show Sunday.

An NYPD spokesperson confirmed a 30 percent year-over-year jump in felony subway assaults in the three week period starting June 28 and ending July 17 — as the city saw a surge in shootings and cops faced violent protests.

Foye called the spike “obviously troubling,” and noted that it came despite a dramatic drop in subway ridership.

“That’s occurring in a situation where we’ve got 1.2 million subway customers instead of 5.5, so this is an important priority for the MTA and obviously the city and the NYPD,” he said.

“We need to do more and we need more resources from the NYPD on that issue.”

Foye is not the first MTA exec to call for more NYPD help this week.

On Monday, Interim Transit President Sarah Feinberg said MTA officials were “frustrated” by the NYPD’s decision to pull resources from overnight homeless outreach.

Despite an uptick in attacks on transit workers, total felonies were down 49.5 percent in June compared to June 2019, according to NYPD stats shared with MTA board members last week, and down 12.3 percent overall on the year.

Last month saw 19 felony assaults in the subways, compared to 22 during June of the previous year, stats show.

Amid a coronavirus-induced fiscal crisis, the MTA put its plan add 500 new officers to its in-house police force on hold earlier this year after just 168 hires.