A police crackdown on sex crimes in the subways produced a sizable jump in arrests this year, the Daily News has learned.
Cops made 128 arrests on charges of sex abuse or forcible touching through Sunday, compared to 104 such collars by the same point in 2013 — a 23% rise, NYPD statistics show.
The increase is due in part to more plainclothes officers being assigned to hunt for sexual predators, police said.
“Increased enforcement is a good step,” said Debjoni Roy, deputy director of Hollaback!, a non-profit advocacy organization that combats sexual harassment. “It means this isn’t being ignored and those of us on the receiving end of harassment and abuse are being heard.”
In one case, on June 18, a plainclothes cop collared a 50-year-old man for rubbing against a woman on a crowded No. 7 train during evening rush hour, according to a complaint filed by Detective Dennis Sanchez.
Rafael Aguilar, who faces charges of misdemeanor sex abuse and harassment, had also been pinched last August for allegedly preying on a woman on a No. 7 train. That case, also pending, charges him with forcible touching and sex abuse, according to a spokeswoman for the Queens District Attorney Richard Brown. Aguilar is now jailed on Rikers Island.
“I ask for forgiveness (from) everyone, the officers and the lady,” Aguilar said after the first arrest, court records show. “It won’t happen again.”
In June, The News published an exclusive analysis of five years of subway crime data that revealed straphangers were victimized by gropers, grinders and flashers more than 3,000 times. Forcible touching was the most prevalent sex crime, with 1,322 complaints.
Nearly half of all forcible touching incidents in the subway during the five-year period, when ended June 30, 2013, occurred between the Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall and 125th St. stations on the Lexington Ave. subway corridor.
For statistical purposes, the NYPD’s Transit Bureau attributes crimes that happen on trains to the nearest subway station. The stations with the most forcible-touching complaints during the study period were 42nd St/Grand Central (Nos. 4,5,6 and 7 lines and the shuttle); 14th St/Union Square (L,4,5,6,N,R); Times Square/Port Authority (1,2,3,N,Q,R,A,C,E); Lexington Ave/59th St. (N,Q,R,4,5,6) and 72nd St. (1,2,3 lines).
Police Commissioner Bill Bratton promised earlier this year that transit cops would put increased focus on misdemeanor crimes and quality-of-life issues that put riders on edge, like vandalism of MetroCard vending machines, on-train performers, the homeless, and, of course, perverts.
