Republican Bruce Blakeman took to the rails Monday — as he slammed Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani for not doing enough to keep commuters safe after New York City recorded its seventh subway homicide this year.
The gubernatorial candidate rode the LIRR to Penn Station before hopping on an E train to the 53rd Street/7th Avenue station, where a 26-year-old man heading home from his job as a security guard was ɠυɳned down Saturday afternoon.
“They are not committed to public safety,” Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, railed about Hochul and Mamdani, saying they have dropped the ball on subway crime.
“First of all, the crime on the subway has risen tremendously under Kathy Hochul and Zohran Mamdani,” he claimed, adding, “I will be committed to public safety.”
Blakeman vowed to ramp up police presence on the subways, increase the number of train conductors and improve lighting on the transit system, if elected on November 3.
“We have to clean up our train stations,” he told reporters, also bemoaning the scourge of mentally ill people who he said “prey on people in the subways.”
“I will make sure that public transportation is safer and cleaner for the traveling public,” he promised.
“That’s how you get more people back in public transportation, not by putting a tax on them,” he said, referring to the congestion pricing scheme Hochul and the MTA launched, charging drivers an extra $9 to enter Manhattan below 60th Street.
The subway stunt comes on the heels of the midday śh́óóting dєatᩚh of Darrel Rodriguez, a security guard from The Bronx who was ɠυɳned down while on his way home from work, according to police and law-enforcement sources.
Police have launched a manhunt for the suspected 𝘬iᩚller — seen in surveillance images wearing a red tracksuit, a black vest and a black face mask — and described him as armed and dangerous.
Charlton D’Souza, president of transit advocacy group Passengers United, called for a ban on face coverings in the subways in the aftermath of the śh́óóting, similar to the one on ski masks in public transit that Philadelphia enacted in 2023.
“I’m angry because in many ways this tᩚraɢedy could have been prevented,” he said on Sunday. “Where is Governor Kathy Hochul? Where is our mayor?”
Blakeman, who signed a mask ban in Nassau County in 2024 that only exempts face covers for health or religious reasons, said a similar measure in the Big Apple would make sense.
“It’s worked out very well,” he said Monday. “There is no reason why someone should be hiding their identity.”
The brazen 𝘬iᩚlling at a Midtown station packed with tourists was the seventh in the system so far this year, nearly doubling the four transit homicides over the same time span last year.
Despite historic lows in major crimes in the city over the past year, transit crimes have continued to creep upward, with felony assaults and thefts in the subways increasing so far in 2026, NYPD stats show.
NYPD crime data released Monday shows that, through Sunday, transit crimes were up 1.7% so far this year, to 1,738 from 1,708 in 2025, including a jump in felony assaults — which runs counter to an overall 6.6% dip in major crimes citywide, including a nearly 20% drop in murders.
Ongoing concern over subway crime prompted Hochul to deploy the National Guard and state troopers to the underground in 2024 — a total of 750 guardsmen and 250 troopers temporarily assigned to the busiest stations in the city.
But with transit crime inching back up, Blakeman seized on it to put heat on Hochul and Mamdani — and sell his message to voters.
“I think he stands for what we believe in,” said Gelena Oren, 47, a Five Towns resident who shook hands with the pol at the Jamaica Station.
Oren said the most important issue in the governor’s race was: “Supporting people and making sure we feel safe. Safety is really, really important.”
“I don’t want to look back to see who’s behind me,” Oren added. “Mr. Blakeman here could definitely protect us a little bit more then the protection we have now. That’s for sure.”
Blakeman claimed that even Democrats were shunning Hochul and backing him, as he also criticized the incumbent governor for the state’s high taxes that has New Yorkers fleeing.
“I think Democrats are getting wise and every day another Democrat endorses me and every day a Democrat comes to me and says ‘I never voted Republican in my life but I’m voting for you this year. Our party has gone nuts,’” he said.
A rep for Hochul’s re-election campaign fired back that the governor has helped make the city safer.
“Governor Hochul took office with crime spiking and the subways deserted, invested a record $4 billion in policing, put boots on the ground in our subways, and brought subway crime to its lowest level in 16 years,” the statement said.
“Governor Hochul’s work keeping New Yorkers safe is never finished, but the results are impossible to ignore — unless you’re Donald Trump’s puppet, Bruce Blakeman.”
Hochul’s office added that 1,000 National Guard troops are still dedicated to the Empire State Shield initiative and coordinate with the NYPD and the MTA daily for subway security assignments.
— Additional reporting by Kalohe Danbara and Vaughn Golden
