No wonder subway riders feel like they’re on a knife’s edge.
The NYPD seized 723 blades on NYC transit so far this year — a stunning 190% increase compared to 249 confiscated during arrests in the first quarter of 2023, The Post has learned.
“That’s pretty shocking,” said teacher Sunny Dominic, 31, who lives in Long Island and was at Grand Central Station Saturday. “That statistic is staggering. It’s wild.”
Jamar Banks, who had 87 prior arrests, was busted in January for two transit stabbings and was caught on surveillance footage wielding a large knife, cops said. Obtained by The New York PostThe number of guns taken during arrests has also surged — going from nine in 2023 to 12 in 2025, a 33% jump, the data show.
The NYPD attributed the increase in confiscated weapons to more enforcement of lower-level subway infractions with a new quality-of-life division targeting violations like hogging seats and turnstile jumping.
“Something small can lead to something much larger,” a police source said.
“If you don’t enforce that emergency gate violation then you could have a guy with a gun on the subway,” the source said. “If you don’t stop someone who’s laying across the seats, then you could have a guy with a large bladed knife on him. There’s a reason why these things are important.”
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch has also flooded the system with cops since January – promising an officer on every train overnight – in answer to a number of high-profile crimes, including a woman who was killed when she was set aflame on a Times Square subway.
But some subway riders still feel unsafe.
The number of cutting instruments confiscated in transit is way up, NYPD data shows. Donna Grace/NY Post Design
A man carries a knife on a subway in Queens. Queens DA“I am scared,” said a 42-year-old woman who identified herself as Marie and said she works in finance in the Bronx. “I commute to work almost every day, and while I do see police presence, it’s always my attitude to be on guard.”
And you don’t know whose got a weapon.
One recent alleged blade runner was Alvin Henigan, 44, was busted around 11 p.m. on March 12 after cops rousted him because he was laying across a subway seat on a Coney Island D train, police said.
The scene where two people were stabbed at Grand Central Station in New York City. Kevin C Downs forThe New York PostHenigan allegedly had a large red knife in plain view in his left jacket pocket and a suspected crack pipe, police said.
He was charged with weapon and drug possession, but was sprung the next day without bail, court records show.
The frequent transit offender has been arrested nearly 60 times in the past, including for assault, robbery and a shooting, police sources said.
Another armed straphanger, Donald Simmons, 46, was stopped when he entered the subway through an emergency gate at the Utica Avenue station in Brooklyn on March 17, cops said.
Alvin Henigan was awakened by cops while sleeping on a subway train in Coney Island and was allegedly in possession of a knife, cops said. Obtained by the New York Post“They stopped him,” a police source said. “They brought him back to the precinct and realized he was a transit offender and he had a loaded firearm on him.”
Simmons was charged with gun possession and fare evasion, cops said.
“Overall arrests are up 73% and fare evasion arrests are up 118%,” an NYPD spokesperson said. “This is a result of our sustained engagement of unlawful conduct and focused enforcement.”
Librarian Carmen Hendershott, 82, called the uptick in knives “disturbing” despite the fact that cops were removing them.
“It either means that . . . more people are carrying knives to defend themselves against danger, or they are planning to threaten somebody,” she said while waiting for a subway in Times Square. “Either way it’s negative.”
Home health aide Ulrike Kolb, 70, was glad to hear cops getting weapons off the subways but still worries.
“It’s terrible,” said Kolb, a native of Germany. “People are more aggressive. … Americans really like weapons.”
