Don’t sleep in the subway! New York City’s police commissioner is instructing police officers to wake passengers in an effort to keep them safe.
More than half of all subway crime in the past year involved a sleeping victim.
The city’s rules for the 24-hour subway system do not prohibit someone from sleeping on the train unless they take up more than one seat or cause a disturbance.
The idea to nudge passengers awake is not new.
Transit officers in 2012 noticed a spike in subway-related thefts and went car-to-car on the late shifts.
“Almost six million people take the subway, and there are approximately six or seven crimes committed in the subway each day,” said in Bill de Blasio, New York City Mayor “And most of those are property theft.”
Homeless advocates questioned whether the initiative is just a way for police to hassle people who use the warm trains for shelter.