XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.republicans, talk.politics.guns
Make sure to view the numerous pictures as words cannot even begin to
describe the horrors.
'Mayor Adams, NYPD brass visited underground homeless wasteland inside
NYC subways — and what they found is surprising: ‘This is inhumane’'
<
https://nypost.com/2024/12/12/us-news/mayor-adams-nypd-brass-visited-underground-homeless-wasteland-and-what-they-found-is-surprising/>
'It was a walk on the wild side.
Mayor Eric Adams and NYPD brass got a firsthand look at the desolate
homeless wasteland inside the Big Apple subway system in an eye-opening overnight tour of the city’s transit vagrant crisis.
With The Post tagging along, the mayor and Police Commissioner Jessica
Tisch joined a crew from a city multi-agency outreach effort at the 34th Street/Herald Square station, with staffers coming upon a total of 96
troubled drifters — many of them struggling with mental health issues.
PATH team members at Penn Station.
8
Police and city outreach workers from a PATH team roam Herald Square
Station to offer the homeless shelter and city services
James Keivom
City outreach workers offer to help homeless man.
8
Outreach workers from the city PATH team offer help to a homeless man at
the 34th Street/Herald Square station.
James Keivom
But the late-night outreach teams face an uphill battle — only 16 of the vagrants offered help accepted it, including a shoeless man taken to a
shelter and a woman who was hospitalized.
Most, however, shunned the helping hand.
“Everyone must do their part and we need Albany to step up,” Adams said. “If we’re on the ground talking about what we need on the ground, they
need to assist us by giving us what we need.
“If we’re saying we need to codify around involuntary removal they shouldn’t be pushing back because we’re out here. Give us the tools that we’re saying we need so we can turn the corner on this issue.
“This is inhumane,” he added. “It requires determination.”
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and Mayor Eric Adams.
8
New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, left, and Mayor Eric
Adams tour Herald Station’s homeless onclaves.
James Keivom
NYPD Commisisoner Jessica Tisch.
8
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch confers with cops during a PATH team
tour of Herald Square this week.
James Keivom
The comments came as state lawmakers weigh passage of the Supportive Interventions Act, which specifies that a person in need of medical or psychiatric care can be forcibly removed from the streets.
Adams launched a “tough love” initiative in 2022 that authorized cops to take troubled vagrants against their will if they were in need of
assistance — and touted the results late last year.
Yet it is unclear how strongly City Hall enforced the initiative, which presents a potential dilemma for cops who could be accused of excessive
force for simply enforcing the mayor’s instructions — while this week’s walk-along at Herald Square suggests the initiative has fallen short.
Adams was tagging along with the city’s Partnership Assistance for
Transit Homelessness, or PATH, team, which ventures across Manhattan
from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m. in an outreach effort with staffers from the NYPD,
the Department of Homeless Services and health department as part of the
crew.
Mayor Eric Adams stops for a pic.
8
Mayor Eric Adams stops to pose with a straphanger during a tour of
Herald Square with a city homeless outreach team
James Keivom
Cops help woman who fell on escalator.
8
NYPD officers and members of the outreach PATH team help a woman who
collapsed on an escalator at the 34th Street/Herald Square subway
station.
James Keivom
Also with the group was NYPD Chief of Transit Joseph Gulotta.
Herald Square has notoriously been a favored haunt for the city’s
homeless and mentally ill.
The tour comes just days after Daniel Penny, a 26-year-old ex-Marine,
was acquitted of criminal charges in the subway chokehold death of
troubled vagrant Jordan Neely — a symptom of a failed system.
“We did a disservice years ago when we closed our psychiatric wards,”
Adams said. “We have excellent homeless outreach, and if we don’t
address this it’s going to elevate and it’s just going to get worse.
“In a minute this could turn violent,” he added.
Adams and city police officials note that overall crime has dipped in
the transit system and in the city as a whole — but acknowledge that it hasn’t been enough to change the perception of most New Yorkers.
Cop offers help to man in wheelchair.
8
NYPD cops offer assistance to a man in a wheelchair during a PATH team
homeless outreach tour of Penn Station.
James Keivom
Mayor Eric Adams.
8
Mayor Eric Adams arrives at the 34th Street/Herald Square subway station
to join a homeless outreach team.
“Arrests are up, crime is down in the city,” Tisch said. “There is still a perception of disorder, and the mayor has launched a number of
initiatives — this being a prime example — to get at those things that create the feeling of disorder in the city.”
City officials said PATH has made contact with about 5,300 homeless and troubled New Yorkers since it launched, with 1,700 receiving care and
services, with about 8,000 placed in shelters and 700 in housing.
“What you’re seeing here is the perfect example of the city realizing
that you can’t arrest your way out of a problem,” she said. “This is the perfect example of the police partnering with clinicians and providing
care for people who need care.”'
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