After praising the health of the city’s metro system in a social media post just hours after a tragic event where a person was set on fire and burned to death aboard a train, New York Governor Kathy Hochul faced fierce criticism.
Hochul, who has been vocal about her efforts to improve subway safety, posted a post on X ( formerly Twitter ) in which she claimed that the city’s subway system had decreased in the wake of her March deployment of National Guard troops. In an effort to reduce violence, the governor cited the addition of security devices on train cars and the presence of 750 National Guard personnel stationed in the train system since the start of the year.
” In March, I took action to make our streetcars safer for the thousands of commuters every day,” Hochul wrote. Since using the @NationalGuardNY to help @NYPDNews and @MTA health efforts and adding devices to all train vehicles, crime is falling and ridership is rising, according to the report.
The message, however, raised eyebrows because it was posted just hours after a brutal assault on the F station at the Stillwell Avenue depot in Brooklyn, when a man, identified as 33-year-old Sebastian Zapeta, set a person on fire.
A community note on X that spoke for the victim, whose life tragically ended in the allegedly intentional attack, even hit Hochul’s post.
According to police sources, Zapeta allegedly threw a lit match on the victim, who was thought to be sleeping at the time. The woman, whose identity has not been confirmed, was later pronounced dead at the scene.
Many people were shocked when a video of the incident went viral, and several social media users quickly pointed out Hochul’s tweet’s stark contrast to the brutality of subway violence.
Some even responded to her post by posting graphic footage of the attack, which highlights the lack of sensibility in her language. A community note referencing the tragic incident was placed under the tweet’s heading.
Former Governor Andrew Cuomo’s secretary, Melissa DeRosa, joined the growing chorus of critics, condemning Hochul for her tone-deaf response. ” 2 people were murdered in the subway today”, DeRosa wrote. The governor of New York is a tourist who is in town but finds it difficult to read even a newspaper.
The backlash didn’t stop there. AntiSemitism, a group that supports anti-Semitism, also voiced its opinion that Hochul’s communications team needed a change. In response to the tweet, they wrote,” She needs a new social media team.”
Lori Mills, the vice chair of the Ventura County Republican Party, was also blunt in her reply, saying,” You must have missed today’s news”.
Meanwhile, sources have identified Sebastian Zapeta, a 33-year-old man who allegedly entered the US from Guatemala about a year ago. Authorities have yet to confirm whether he entered the country legally, and the details of his immigration status are still undetermined. For more details regarding Zapeta’s status, Fox News Digital reached out to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement ( ICE).
The incident, which adds to the growing concerns about subway safety, sparked new debates about whether Hochul’s current measures are effective and whether Hochul’s policies are actually addressing the city’s violent crime problem.
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