MTA tries to lock down parked subway trains amid spate of teen vandal break-ins
NYC Transit President Demetrius Crichlow, in an email sent Monday to subway staff, said that security personnel would be scrutinizing employee IDs in the coming days 'in order to minimize the risk of unauthorized individuals entering our property,' according to a copy reviewed by the Daily News.
The moves come as a group of teens was caught breaking into the No. 4 train's Moshulu Yard in Kingsbridge Heights early Saturday morning, sources with knowledge of the situation told The News. They were discovered by transit workers but fled the yard before police arrived, according to the sources. It was not immediately clear if the teens had broken into any trains.
The same day, a photograph of R142 subway cars in the Moshulu Yard appeared on an Instagram account that has also posted footage of other recent break-ins and train takeovers.
The Saturday intrusion came days after a teen was collared while breaking into the cab of a No. 2 train elsewhere in the Bronx, and a month after an apparently related crew took an R train on a joyride under Brooklyn.
Asked Wednesday what steps were being taken to curb the incursions, Crichlow said his team was going beyond enforcing employee IDs.
'We put out a bulletin to all employees: challenge someone who doesn't have their pass displayed,' Crichlow said, but added that an alarm had been added to yard control towers.
'Our engineering team put together a quick-fix which essentially alerts the tower operator when there is an unauthorized move in the yard,' he said.
The transit boss said his crews were also working on adding additional locks to train cabs, which are traditionally opened by a master key.
MTA chairman Janno Lieber Wednesday called on the city's criminal justice system to take the issue more seriously.
'One of the people engaged in this had done it before — a week or two before,' Lieber said. 'The real issue we've got is most subway crime is committed by recidivists, by people who've done it much more than once or twice.'
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