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Council Member Salaam questions NYPD on subway surfing prevention efforts
0:55:47
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169 sec
Council Member Yusef Salaam inquires about the NYPD's approach to addressing the dangerous trend of subway surfing among youth. Chief of Transit Joseph M. Gulotta and Commissioner Jessica Tisch respond, detailing their strategies for prevention, education, and intervention without resorting to arrests.
- The average age of subway surfers is 14 years old
- NYPD uses drones for detection and focuses on outreach to parents and schools
- Efforts aim to identify repeat offenders and prevent future incidents through education
Yusef Salaam
0:55:47
I want to move to questions about subway surfing.
0:55:55
In recent times, some of the youth in our city have been partaking in a dangerous trend of subway surfing.
0:56:04
I would like to hear more from the commissioner on the department's resources dedicated to educating and stopping our youth from partaking in this dangerous activity.
0:56:14
I would also like to make sure that we aren't arresting them for this, but rather we are trying to make them understand that this is an activity that they cannot and should not do because of the inherent dangers they're in.
Jessica Tisch
0:56:29
If it's okay, chair, I'll have our chief of transit who oversees these efforts answer that question.
Joseph M. Gulotta
0:56:36
Yeah.
0:56:37
So subway surfing's one of the main things we look at.
0:56:40
The average age of a subway surfer is 14 years old, which is very concerning for all of us.
0:56:45
We had a meeting in this room we discussed that previously, and we take it very seriously.
0:56:52
We take a couple different approaches to this.
0:56:55
One would be we have drones up looking for subwoofer.
0:57:00
And when we do get a subway surfer and it do stop them, it's not just an arrest.
0:57:05
It's not about arresting.
0:57:07
What we'll do with this is we will meet with the parents.
0:57:10
We will sit down.
0:57:11
We will talk to the kids.
0:57:12
We'll identify the school.
0:57:13
We'll get our outreach to that school and speak to the students at that school.
0:57:17
Because a lot of times what we see, it's repeat offenders at repeat schools.
0:57:22
So it's about outreach at the center of everything we do with subway surfing, using technology to help us do that as well.
0:57:29
And there's some harrowing videos out there where you see very young individuals up on top of those trains, and it's very concerning to us.
0:57:36
But our core purpose is to identify them, to identify the repeat offenders, get with their parents, get with the schools, and try to prevent it in the future.
Jessica Tisch
0:57:46
And oftentimes the parents, the chief has reported to me, the parents are shocked when they see the videos of their kids subway surfing.
0:57:56
But the parents definitely have to be a part of this equation here.
Joseph M. Gulotta
0:58:00
Yeah.
0:58:01
And to the commissioner's point, we've had parents collapse.
0:58:04
Can they dare to tell a tragedy had happened to the to the child who was subway surfing.
0:58:09
So we see the effect.
0:58:10
It's deep rooted and like I said a lot of times we see repeat offenders.
Yusef Salaam
0:58:15
Well definitely thank you for the effort to stem this dangerous I don't even know what to call it, it shouldn't happen, right?
0:58:26
I'm going to come back to my questioning, but I'm going to yield to allow for Tiffany, Councilmember Tiffany Caban, to ask her questions.