NYC NOW - December 21, 2023: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

New York is redrawing its congressional districts, thanks to a lawsuit by state Democrats. Plus, the city’s teachers union is suing to stop the Adams Administration from slashing the education department’s budget. And finally, WNYC’s Michael Hill and Bahar Ostadan discuss how much money the NYPD spends on police overtime in the subways.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. I'm Jene Pierre. It's happening again. New York is redrawing its congressional districts, thanks to a lawsuit by state Democrats. But as WMYC's John Campbell reports, Republicans see a path to keeping the current lines in place for next year's elections. If Democrats draw new lines that benefit their party, Republicans like former Congressman John Faso, say they'll sue. That could let the GOP argue the 2024 elections should be held with the current boundaries in place. If Democrats insist on doing that, then inevitably this will wind up back

in court and we'll wind up running the 24 elections on the current lines. Republicans flipped four House seats in New York in last year's midterms. With the GOP currently holding a slim house majority, both parties view the state as key to controlling Congress. The state redistricting panel has until the end of February to draw new lines. The Teachers Union is suing to stop the Adams administration from slashing the Education Department's budget. United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mogru says the cuts violate state law and will hurt students.

We are already seeing more overcrowded classrooms. We are seeing supply shortages. We are seeing children with special needs, not getting their mandated services. Mayor Eric Adams plans to cut more than $500 million from the education. Department now, with more to come next year. Adam says it's because of a budget crunch due to migrant costs and the loss of federal aid. But Mulgrove says the city is not in the financial crisis the mayor claims. Stay close. After the break, we'll hear just how much the NYPD paid in overtime this year in the subways. Spoiler alert, a lot. Last year, the NYPD spent $4 million.

on police overtime in the subways. This year, after the department flooded the subways with officers, it spent 155 million. My colleague Michael Hill talked with WMYC's Bahar Ostadon, who's been looking into what this means for subway safety. So from $4 million to $155 million, that's a huge jump. What's the thinking there? So a lot of this was, you know, part of Mayor Adams' campaign promise,

and something that he tackled actually his first week in office pretty much. He stood alongside the governor and said, you know, he wanted to reduce subway crime and he wanted to crack down on people sleeping in the stations, in the trains. And the way he was going to do that was by adding more police officers. So I caught up with NYPD Chief of Transit, Mike Kemper. And he said he's deployed over a thousand more police officers into the subway station on average each day. in the last year. And that's on top of the existing transit unit of the NYPD, which has at least 2,500 transit officers and runs the city about $250 million a year. Now, when we hear this, the big

jump in overtime, it's going to immediately have us asking what has been the impact on subway safety? So there's been a 2% drop in what the police call major crimes. The majority of that drop has been from fewer robberies, 48 fewer robberies, to be exact. And they define a robbery as stealing someone's property with force, you know, or the threat of force or violence. There's also been seven fewer rapes this year versus last year reported for fewer murders. And the exception, though, to this reduction is there have been 26 more reported assaults this year. And again, the MTA and the NYPD track reports of crimes. That doesn't necessarily mean that an arrest took place or conviction took place.

You reported a huge jump in fair evasion tickets and arrests. What's that about? So the police chief of transit, Mike Kemper, says from his perspective, it's about enacting this sort of, quote, law and order in the underground. He says he's trying to, quote, correct the behavior. So, you know, the MTA says it's lost almost $300 million to fair jumping in the train specifically. Police have now upped their arrests for fair evasion.

in the last year by 250% they've issued tens of thousands more summonses or tickets for fair evasion and that's followed sort of this familiar racial pattern, right? So 92% of people arrested for fair evasion are not white. 82% of people ticketed for fair evasion are not white and that pattern has stayed consistent

for the last six years since 2017 pretty much to the T. That's when the NYPD first started reporting the sort of data publicly. But I'm wondering, what have you heard from people, from folks who ride the subways? So we visited the Ralph Avenue station in Ocean Hill, Brooklyn last month, where there was actually a shooting in the subway station during rush hour. We caught up with Shaquim Coleman. Here's a clip from him.

They stand here waiting for people to jump the turnstile. Then real stuff is happening in the train. So I got shot, right? And you get people, you know, who might not have the fear today. I'm not condoning or whatever behavior. I'm just saying. So there are obviously varying perspectives on how people felt about police and the subways.

But I think there's sort of this interesting question, right, of how what people's perception of safety is and how they feel may not always match with the hard data that we're seeing on crime. So it's something that we'll have to sort of keep surveying as we go on. That's WMYC's Bahar Oestadon, talking with my colleague Michael Hill.

Before we go, a quick heads up. Next week, our team has taken some time off. We'll be dropping one episode a day instead of the usual three. But we'll be looking back at the top stories of 2024, the ones that really stuck with us and with you. So keep your ears on this podcast feed throughout the holidays. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Jenae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.