Happy Holidays, from New York City, again.

According to the Daily Mail:

NEW YORK — A man was critically injured Tuesday after police say someone pushed him in front of a train at a Manhattan subway station.

It happened around 1:30 p.m. on the downtown platform at the 18th Street subway station in Chelsea. The disturbing incident was captured on video.

Surveillance video obtained by CBS News New York shows the victim, a 45-year-old man, standing on the platform, looking down at his phone. Another man can be seen walking past him on the platform. He disappears for a minute, then is seen again standing behind the man a few feet away. With no apparent warning, he then pushes the 45-year-old onto the tracks just as a 1 train pulls in.

Subway pushings are not new in New York, but incidents like these, and other atrocities, such as the crime of the woman who was set on fire in a New York subway shortly before Christmas, seem to be more frequent -- and more shocking as video from cell phones graphically show just what happened.

Nicole Gelinas at the New York Post reports that 43 people were killed on the subway by random criminals as they went about their daily lives since March 2020. That figure wouldn't include this man, who actually survived the pushing with a broken skull and rib.

They are shocking because they seem so unavoidable. In New York, subways are in enclosed spaces where you can't always get away on rides, making you vulnerable right there to predators. What's more, there's no practical way of getting around all the time through New York City's vast spaces unless you use that subway. For 3.6 million New Yorkers, they simply have to do it.

Which raises questions as to why this incident happened.

Not much is known about the attacker, whether he was here legally or not, but a couple other things stand out from the video:

The opening sequences begins with two fare-jumpers leaping over the turnstile without consequences ahead of the masked third man already in the subway who did the pushing.

It's not known from the video if the pusher was with them or not, but the point is obvious that small crimes like fare jumping are going unenforced. Obviously, if the little crimes are not enforced, the big ones will become more common and likely because the message sent is that no one cares. That's from James Q. Wilson's "broken windows theory" which was employed back in the 1990s by then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and his cop chief, Bernie Kerik, to make New York City safe, following a godawful period of "Fort Apache"-style crime and lawlessness, along with the rise of social service agencies. A subsequent mayor, radical left-wing Bill De Blasio, got rid of that enforcement and beefed up the NGOs. Net result: a sudden resurgence of callous, shocking crime.

Two: New York doesn't enforce drug laws much. A lot of sudden-onset impulse crime, such as random assaults and subway pushings, are done by perpetrators on drugs, particularly marijuana, most of whom claim diminished capacity once they are picked up by the cops and charged after their crimes. We still don't know if this subway pusher was in that category, but let's just say the possibility of it can't be dismissed.

Pot is a drug that triggers psychotic episodes in some users, studies show, yet taking these drugs is perfectly legal in New York.

This is from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene:

It is legal for adults 21 and older to possess up to three ounces of cannabis and up to 24 grams of concentrated cannabis outside your home for personal use in New York. You are allowed to store up to five pounds of cannabis in your home.

You can buy cannabis at adult-use or medical dispensaries licensed by the State Office of Cannabis Management. Licensed dispensaries post a New York State Licensed Cannabis Dispensary decal (PDF) on or near their main entrance. To find a licensed dispensary, visit the adult-use dispensary locator.

What kind of crap is that? Did I just read: "You can buy?"

Way down on the same page, the $1.6 billion agency admits that pot use can be dangerous, following its section on its "benefits":

Research has shown links between cannabis and some health risks:

• Higher risk of motor vehicle crashes when driving while impaired
• Earlier onset of psychotic disorders for those already at risk, particularly people who start using cannabis at a younger age or use it more frequently
• More frequent respiratory symptoms, especially when the person has chronic bronchitis
• Lung injuries due to vaping cannabis
  • Letter from the Health Commissioner About Lung Injuries Associated with Vaping (PDF)
    Other Languages: Español | Kreyòl ayisyen | العربية | বাংলা | Français | 한국어 | Русский |
    简体中文 | 繁體中文 | اردو | Polski | Italiano
• Misuse is more likely to develop among people who start using cannabis at an earlier age or use it more frequently.
• Additional health risks specific to youth are listed below in the Cannabis and Youth section.

So the psychotic stuff is just one risk to take after all those benefits and availability notices with this substance being legal. They seem to think this is a risk-reward ratio worth having in tolerating pot use, and too bad about the people who pay the consequences.

You can have legal pot, or you can have safe subways, but odds are good you can't have both.

That, plus sanctuary laws that protect illegals who commit heinous crimes creates yet another problem that hits the subways particularly hard, particularly when they take drugs. The subway burner reportedly claims he was taking K-2, an illegal synthetic pot, which he obviously had no problem obtaining even as he supposedly lived in a rehab shelter. Nobody enforcing anything over at that place.

And lastly, the accused perpetrator in the pushing attack seemed to be a career criminal, getting second, third, fourth, fifth and more chances by the system.

Citing the New York Post, the Mail continued:

According to the publication, Hawkins has a pending assault cases going through the courts.

He was allegedly charged with assault in June 2019 after attacking a police officer, and was charged on October 12 for assault, harassment and possession of weapons.

He ought to have been locked up for the first one, and left there, but that's not blue-city politics. It would have spared the victim the horrific attack and kept other criminals from getting ideas.

Some wiseacres say that New York can solve its subway safety problem by doing what Singapore does, which is puts up glass barriers to prevent pushings. Given the older design of the New York subway, and the likelihood that potheads and other criminals will just kick the glass in, good luck with that.

Much better to target the hearts and minds of those who would commit the crimes, because they will always find a way to do them.

The latest pushing incident raises questions as to whether unenforced small crimes and pot use are worth tolerating given the consequences to many innocent riders.

City officials, as it stands now, have no answers.

Which makes me think New Yorkers must long for a new Giuliani, or might even take the old one, given the horrible specters now seen on the subways. At a minimum, ridership will go down with these incidents, and New York's MTA says it's already down to two-thirds of what it was prior to the last pandemic.

The grotesqueness of what is happening now calls for some kind of solution. More guards, more barriers isn't going to do it. Addressing the drugs, petty crime, and sanctuary status of the city is a much more serious argument, which will take that hardest of things to come by in blue-city politics: political courage.

Image: X video screen shot