The mother of a teenage girl whom a homeless woman pushed onto the tracks in a New York City subway station told Democratic mayor Eric Adams he needs to "do something."
"This isn’t working. Something has to be done," Jeanette Jimenez, mother of 18-year-old Sarah Arias, said. "The mayor, the city, has to do something."
Arias was on her way to get her hair done hours before she was set to go to prom when she was shoved onto the tracks by a homeless woman. She pulled herself back onto the platform just before a train arrived at the station, but she was left with injuries. The high school senior was on her way to a hair appointment before her prom that night, which she still attended despite the attack.
"I just kept telling my mom I have to go to prom," Arias told the New York Post. "I’m not missing prom. How can you miss prom?"
The message to the city's Democratic leadership from the mother, who said allowing unmedicated and unmonitored homeless people to wander around "doesn't work," comes after many similar incidents in the city, where crime is on the rise.
The city instituted bail reform that is keeping criminals out of prison and reoffending. A handful of thieves who continue to be released are committing one-third of retail crime.
Just last month, a 35-year-old woman was pushed in front of a train by a man who is believed to be homeless and left paralyzed from the neck down. She could still die from her injuries, prosecutors say.
Violent crime is up in the subway compared with 2020, with 132 felony assaults in the first quarter of 2023. Last year, a black nationalist gunned down 13 people in a Brooklyn subway station.