CBS News
Hochul deploys National Guard troops to New York City subway amid rising crime numbers
NEW YORK — Following a series of violent incidents in the New York City subway system, Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday announced a new five-point safety plan that includes bringing in hundreds of National Guard troops and adding new security cameras.
Hochul announced that a combined 1,000 personnel — including 750 National Guard troops, along with MTA Police — would be deployed in the subway system to help the NYPD conduct bag checks in an effort to keep weapons off trains.
“Let me just be very, very clear. These brazen, heinous attacks on our subway system will not be tolerated,” Hochul said.
This came in addition to Mayor Eric Adams‘ announcement Tuesday to add more police officers and re-institute bag checks.
“I know how it plays on your psyche when you hear about some random acts of violence and that’s why we must be proactive,” Adams told CBS New York in an interview earlier Wednesday ahead of Hochul’s announcement.
The governor and mayor both argued the new safety plan will protect both passengers and transit workers. However, within an hour of the its announcement, another subway conductor was attacked. The conductor was struck on the head with a bottle at the East 170th/Jerome Avenue station, the NYPD said.
Adams speaks ahead of announcement
In Wednesday’s interview with CBS New York, both the mayor, who was noticeably absent during the governor’s announcement, and NYPD Transit Chief Michael Kemper, defended the bag checks as an important safety tool.
“Including with what they’re doing checking bags to make sure explosive or illegal weapons are not entering our subway system, it’s also creating another sense of presence,” Kemper said.
City Hall sources told CBS New York that each week the NYPD will deploy 94 bag-screening teams at 136 stations, about one-third of the 472 stations in the system.
Hochul’s 5-point plan
In addition to the bag checks, Hochul’s plan incudes:
- Amending state law to ban repeat offenders
- Installing cameras in each conductor’s cabin
- $20 million for mental health outreach
- A plan to improve coordination between police officers and district attorneys to go after repeat offenders, the suspects who seem to make all the headlines that scare people
“There’s a psychological impact. People worry they could be next,” Hochul said.
Transit riders have mixed feeling about whether bag checks will improve safety.
“How many people do you know that actually carry a knife or gun in their bag when it is they are ready to stick you up, ‘Oh, hold up, I’m going to go into my bag.’ It doesn’t make sense,” one person said.
“New York City’s subways are crazy. You don’t know what to anticipate anymore. I would rather the bag checks than end up dead,” another said.
“I know these are difficult times in many ways and I’ve been through bag checks before. They do them at theaters. I can do it if I have to do it,” another added.
Richard Davis, the head of the Transport Workers Union, said the measures don’t go far enough, and that the 1,000 National Guardsmen and MTA Police cannot be temporary. CBS New York asked Hochul how long the surge would last, but she refused to say how long and how long the state would fund the program.
She tartly pointed out that New York City has an unanticipated $3 billion surplus.
CBS News
Pharrell Williams on “Piece by Piece” and his love of joy
On a rainy day in Paris, Pharrell Williams was at the headquarters of Louis Vuitton living the dream, at an office he prefers to call “a dream space.”
Last February, Williams was appointed the Men’s Creative Director. He oversees a staff of 200, and has already launched four new collections. His most recent, at UNESCO, paid tribute to the variety of the human race.
Asked what is most satisfying watching his designs come down the runway, Williams said, “You’re gonna hate this answer: All of it!” he laughed. “Come on, man. It’s a dream!”
For more than three decades he’s been helping to make some of pop music’s biggest hits, from Nelly’s “Hot in Herre” to Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl,” while helping to bridge the gap between pop culture and high fashion.
He says the runway is just another way for him to show people who he is: “I always want to evoke a sense of joy, ’cause I feel like the world, there’s a deficit of joy.”
Sanneh asked, “But I imagine you do still have to pay attention to, ‘Are people buying these clothes that I made?'”
“Sure; that’s when you start questioning the success,” Williams said. “But like, man, you gotta enjoy it. If you enjoy it, nine times out of ten, somebody else gonna enjoy it.”
Now there’s something new to enjoy: “Piece by Piece,” an animated Lego movie about Williams’ life, directed by the award-winning documentarian Morgan Neville. Last month, at the Toronto Film Festival, Williams said he still can’t believe he got to make this film. “I’m from a marginalized community where we often hear the word ‘no’ all the time,” he said. “For whatever reason, [for ‘Piece by Piece’], we got a lot of yeses.”
“This seems like one of your superpowers is getting people to say ‘yes’ to things they might otherwise say ‘no’ to,” said Sanneh.
“It wasn’t that hard; it’s just harder for people who look like me,” Williams replied. “But when we tell it in Lego, now it’s universal. Replace Black with LGBTQIA, or Indian, or Asian, or short, or plus size, or anything. LEGO is the great equalizer.”
To watch a trailer for “Piece by Piece,” click on the video player below:
As a boy growing up in a Virginia Beach apartment complex, Williams, a self-described misfit, saw and heard the world differently than most people, through a condition called synesthesia, by which he “sees” the colors of sound: “For me, sight and sound are still connected, so they send ghost images to each other. It’s a condition, but also at the same time it’s a gift, because I don’t know how I would make music if I couldn’t see it. That’s the way that I conceptualize it.”
With his childhood friend Chad Hugo, he formed a duo called The Neptunes. They were discovered by the music producer Teddy Riley, who saw them perform at a high school talent show. In 1992, around the time of his 19th birthday, Williams helped Riley write a hit single called “Rump Shaker,” recorded by the hip-hop group Wreckx-N-Effect.
Williams said, “If it wasn’t for Teddy Riley, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now. ‘Cause I was in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where there was no music studio or music industry or anything like that.”
The Neptunes produced a string of hits, and then Williams branched out on his own, becoming a real pop star. His voice was everywhere, although Williams himself had mixed feelings about it: “I had a song called ‘Beautiful’ with Snoop, right? Girls heard me singing that; I heard Mickey Mouse! I swear to you, when you just get a moment and you just listen, you’ll never be able to un-hear it again. But that’s what I hear.”
“Sexy Mickey Mouse?” asked Sanneh.
“No, not sexy, just Mickey Mouse. It was wild for me.”
By the early 2000s, Williams says he felt lost: “I had moved away from being a student, and things became too formulaic. And that was troubling to my spirit, and I could no longer feel what I was doing.”
He rebounded by being a bit more open to new ideas – working with Daft Punk on “Get Lucky,” and Robin Thicke on “Blurred Lines.”
“Get Lucky” by Daft Punk featuring Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers:
The producers of “Despicable Me 2” asked him to write a song for the soundtrack … something happy. “I would’ve never written a song called ‘Happy,'” he said. “It was commissioned for me to do. And on top of that, I didn’t think I was gonna have any more, like, hit records. The universe was like, ‘Well, not only are you wrong about that, but I’m gonna have three different commissions come from three different places, and these are gonna be the biggest records for you.’ It just humbled me because it was like, I couldn’t be pompous. I couldn’t be arrogant.”
“Happy” by Pharrell Williams:
Naturally, Williams, now 51, created the theme song for the new movie “Piece by Piece”:
He’s put a music studio in his office, so he can make songs while simultaneously working on the next Louis Vuitton collection. But he says he never feels as if he’s on the clock.
Asked if the pressure to create takes some of the joy out of it, Williams replied, “It’s not a pressure; it’s a privilege. You can’t go wrong when your aim is to enjoy what you do. You can’t go wrong.”
For more info:
Story produced by Robbyn McFadden. Editor: Steven Tyler.
CBS News
Election officials on threats to your right to vote
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
CBS News
Passage: Kris Kristofferson and Pete Rose
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.