The lack of security camera footage from the 36th Street subway station has become a significant obstacle in efforts to detain the gunman in the recent attack, putting the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s surveillance system under renewed scrutiny.
Mayor Eric Adams said a “malfunction” was the reason that at least one camera at the station failed to capture anything. M.T.A. officials claimed that no more than 1 percent of the subway system’s cameras are out of service at any given time.
One senior law enforcement official said that it appeared none of the station’s cameras were in full operation at the time of the shooting. It is unclear exactly how many cameras were at the station. The official requested anonymity because it is an ongoing case.
Cameras are checked “regularly,” Tim Minton, an M.T.A. spokesman, said. He could not say how often. When the agency announced in September that it had finished installing security cameras in every one of the city’s 472 subway stations, officials touted them as a safety benefit. The M.T.A. has nearly 10,000 cameras in its system, Janno Lieber, chief executive officer of the agency, said.
But problems with the cameras date back years. In 2010, M.T.A. officials said nearly half of the system’s cameras at the time did not work, either because of software or construction problems. And in 2018, an audit by the state comptroller’s office found routine problems with camera maintenance in the subway system. For instance, auditors reviewed all 223 cameras at 10 subway stations between January 2014 through September 2016 and found that about 31 percent of 4,219 planned checks weren’t done.
The audit also found that 26 percent of 9,223 calls to the M.T.A. ‘s Electronic Maintenance Division for problems with cameras and recording devices during the same period took longer than a three-day target to be addressed. A follow-up report in 2019 concluded that the agency had “made progress” by following some of the audit’s recommendations.
“If you are a criminal who preys on those who use our system, you will have your image captured and be put on the express track to justice,” the agency’s chief safety and security officer, Patrick Warren, said in September.
Surveillance of New Yorkers has drawn criticism from civil liberties advocates who have said that security cameras do not necessarily prevent crime. They have also criticized the N.Y.P.D.’s use of them to monitor homeless people at subway stations and warned against potentially discriminatory use of their footage.
