Man Kicks Down 2 Windows On Brooklyn Subway Car, Train Pulled From Service Due To Damage

In the latest incident of subway vandalism, a man allegedly kicked two windows of a train car to the ground in Brooklyn on Sunday, July 12.

The vandal was seen kicking down two windows facing each other at the ends of two adjacent cars on a moving Q train at about 5 p.m. EDT when the train was about to enter the Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center station. The suspect fled the scene and the train was pulled from service to address the damages, New York Daily News reported.

This vandalism was not an isolated incident as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority reported last month that at least 32 windows from trains that entered the No. 7 line between May 1 and June 28 were found decimated. This was a sharp increase from the two smashed windows in the past year over the same period, despite subway ridership reducing this year by over 90% amid the coronavirus pandemic.

In fact, subway vandalism was on the rise since the beginning of the year 2020 after vandals in February left at least 11 trains covered in graffiti in Queens, sparking an MTA investigation. Each car in the Jamaica Train Yard was sprayed with different colors, with one message saying “don’t come here.” The incident drew criticism from commuters who said the vandals were able to exploit the loopholes in the system to spend a great deal of time in sabotaging the train cars.

“Senseless vandalism on subway cars puts riders and transit employees at risk while costing taxpayers thousands of dollars and triggering delays every time some coward decides to spray glass all over the train,” MTA spokesman Tim Minton told the New York Daily News with regards to the Sunday incident. “We are cooperating with the NYPD and when perpetrators are caught they should be prosecuted aggressively to the maximum extent allowed by law.”