For decades, New York\u00a0succeeded in keeping its transit system safe.<\/p>\n
![\"Surveillance](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/EDMELD.jpg\")
Surveillance video obtained by The Post shows Rhamell Burke allegedly pushing Ross Falzone down the subway stairs. Obtained by the NY Post<\/p>\n
Recently, we\u2019ve just\u00a0given up on doing it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
For any transit rider, watching\u00a0the video\u00a0of\u00a0Falzone<\/a> in the seconds before his murder\u00a0conjures the same emotions video of\u00a0Brown\u2019s random attack<\/a> on Zarutska evoked.\u00a0<\/p>\n We see Falzone,\u00a0a retired teacher,\u00a0confidently\u00a0walking\u00a0down\u00a0Chelsea\u2019s 18th\u00a0Street\u00a0toward the subway\u00a0steps,\u00a0backpack slung over his shoulders.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n He feels no danger; he\u00a0appears to be\u00a0reading a piece of paper.<\/p>\n Then another\u00a0man, allegedly 32-year-old\u00a0Rhamell Burke,\u00a0steps\u00a0into the frame, stretching his arms in one motion toward Falzone.<\/p>\n He catapults the older man forward, smashing Falzone\u2019s head into the\u00a0steps.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n We all like to think that we, streetwise and transit-wise, would never suffer\u00a0such a\u00a0fate.\u00a0<\/p>\n The footage reveals this to be self-delusion; neither Zarutska nor Falzone could have saved themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n New Yorkers who can grasp facts feel another emotion, too: frustration and anger.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Falzone\u2019s was\u00a0the fourth subway killing\u00a0of 2026.<\/p>\n Three\u00a0of these deaths<\/a> were stranger-on-stranger crimes, the kind of violence people fear most.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Falzone\u2019s murder\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0even the first transit\u00a0eldercide\u00a0of 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n In March Bairon Hernandez, 34,\u00a0fatally\u00a0flung Richard Williams<\/a>, an 83-year-old military veteran, onto the subway tracks at Lexington Avenue and 63rd\u00a0Street.\u00a0<\/p>\n And Falzone\u2019s death\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0 the only recent instance of murder by stairs.<\/p>\n In\u00a0July 2021, a suspect\u00a0pulled\u00a058-year-old Than\u00a0Htwe<\/a> down the Q train steps at Canal Street, killing her; a year before,\u00a0another man was pushed to his death<\/a>\u00a0on the Penn Station steps.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n These\u00a0murders\u00a0aren\u2019t\u00a0anecdotes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n They are part of\u00a0a\u00a0dataset that illustrates how much more deadly our subways are now, compared to seven years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n Since 2020, New York has suffered 47\u00a0subway murders, along with at least five justified homicides, including the\u00a0police\u00a0killing<\/a>\u00a0of a machete-wielding head-hacker\u00a0at Grand Central\u00a0last month.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n That\u2019s\u00a0an average of eight murders a year over the past six years.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n This is\u00a0not normal.<\/p>\n In the 23 years between 1997 and 2019, New York\u00a0never\u00a0had a year with more than five subway murders.<\/p>\n And it suffered just\u00a0two\u00a0years \u2014 1999 and 2005 \u2014\u00a0with\u00a0even that many.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Over this two-decade period, the average number of killings in the transit system each year was two \u2014 and in 2017, it\u00a0reached\u00a0zero.\u00a0<\/p>\n Unsurprisingly, serious transit-system violence that sometimes results in murder is also up: Over six years from 2020 through 2025, New Yorkers, visitors, transit\u00a0workers\u00a0and police officers suffered 3,125 life-changing felony assaults in the subways \u2014 a level that previously took 13 years to reach.\u00a0<\/p>\n Now,\u00a0we\u2019re\u00a0on our third mayor\u00a0who is overseeing four times the level of subway killings that\u00a0New Yorkers accepted between the late 1990s and 2019.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tGet opinions and commentary from our columnists\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter!\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n And when we complain about it,\u00a0we\u2019re\u00a0gaslit \u2014 from\u00a0the\u00a0Bill\u00a0de Blasio-era\u00a0NYPD\u00a0saying\u00a0the\u00a0problem was \u201cfearmongering,\u201d<\/a> to\u00a0Eric\u00a0Adams\u00a0saying\u00a0it was a matter of \u201cperception,\u201d<\/a> to Mamdani\u2019s NYPD implying,\u00a0this month, that things are\u00a0just fine<\/a> \u2014\u00a0when\u00a0in fact violent\u00a0subway felonies\u00a0were up nearly 7% in the first quarter of this year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n What is going wrong?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Adams, spurred by Gov. Kathy Hochul and state funding, deployed\u00a0hundreds of NYPD officers on overtime shifts in the subway\u00a0beginning in 2022, and Mamdani has kept them.\u00a0<\/p>\n The\u00a0state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority\u00a0and the\u00a0city\u00a0have deployed police-backed teams of mental-health workers to get disturbed people out of transit.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n But once police arrest violent suspects or clinicians call for mental evaluation, suspects or patients\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0stay\u00a0in jail or in the hospital.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The man who allegedly killed Williams in March\u00a0\u2014 an illegal migrant \u2014 had racked up\u00a015 arrests.\u00a0<\/p>\n Police\u00a0had\u00a0arrested<\/a>\u00a0Burke, the suspect in Falzone\u2019s killing,\u00a0four times\u00a0since February, including for violent subway behavior; he was released every time.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n And police brought Burke to Bellevue for\u00a0psychiatric\u00a0evaluation\u00a0hours\u00a0before he allegedly pushed Falzone \u2014 and was released again.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Burke\u2019s psychosis may have been drug-induced, meaning that he had calmed down by the time a doctor assessed him. He behaved normally in court this weekend.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n