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State Attorney General Letitia James’ GOP challenger Sunday accused her of allowing “chaos in the subways” to thrive, after a fatal shooting at a crowded Midtown station sent tourists fleeing the day before.
Former federal prosecutor Saritha Komatireddy told reporters at the Seventh Avenue and 53rd Street station, where Saturday’s bloodshed broke out, that the Dem’s soft-on-crime and alleged anti-cop stance has allowed transit violence in the Big Apple to buck the trend that has seem most violent city crimes plummet to historic lows.
“This is why so many families, hard-working New Yorkers and even tourists don’t feel safe coming into New York and using the subways,” Komatireddy said. “Under Letitia James, felony assaults in the transit systems have gone up 94%. That means they’ve doubled.
“That is for one simple reason: James has chosen to investigate the cops who police the subways instead of investigating the violent criminals who create chaos in the subways,” she said. “She actually calls that progress. I call it failure. It’s not progress, it’s failure and we need to treat it as such.
“The reality is right now in New York subways, we have chaos in the trains.”
The fatal weekend shooting took place around 12:20 p.m. when the victim got into an argument with the gunman, according to police.
The Midtown station was packed with tourists when the shooter opened fire, striking the unidentified victim and fleeing the station, leaving the man mortally wounded on the northbound platform, police said.
Law-enforcement sources have told The Post that the shooting was a targeted attack and that there was “nothing random between these two individuals,” although further details have not been released.
Komatireddy claimed that James’ has been too quiet about city transit crime and has instead zealously launched probes of the NYPD, including a 2021 lawsuit alleging excessive force at Black Lives Matter protests.
“As attorney general, I will launch a sweeping transit-crime crackdown,” Komatireddy said. “We will start a transit-crime strike force in the attorney general’s office. We will ensure that the transit crimes are enforced. And we will remove repeat and violent offenders from the trains and buses.”
James’ office did not respond to a Post request for comment Sunday.
A year-to-year uptick in city transit murders from January to mid-October mars an otherwise stellar showing by New York’s Finest that has seen murders and shootings in the five boroughs so far this year, stats released earlier this month show.
But overall subway crimes, including assault and thefts, edged up slightly by 0.9%, to 1,628 reported incidents through Oct. 6 this year compared to 1,613 last year over the same span last year.
Through Oct. 11, the latest NYPD stats available, murders citywide were down nearly 20% over last year, but overall transit crime had edged up by 1.6% compared to the same time last year.