NEW YORK — The New York Police Department is searching for three individuals who stole a New York City Transit subway train and took it on a short joyride last weekend.
WCBS-TV reports the incident was discovered about 10 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025, near 71st Avenue station in Forest Hills along the E-F-M-R subway lines when employees returned to a train they had left on a layover track and found it had been moved. The doors were locked, indicating one of those involved had transit keys.
Video posted by the three individuals shows the train being operated at a high rate of speed (30 mph, according to a New York Daily News report). The individuals all wore masks and covered lens on the train with black markers, authorities said.
The MTA is analyzing the train’s black box to determine where the train was taken and for how long.
It is at least the third such incident in about year. In September, two 17-year were arrested after allegedly stealing and crashing a train on the E-F lines. Another incident occurred at the 71st Street station last January.
WPIX-TV reports the NYPD described the suspects as “kids,” ages unknown, who also broke multiple windows on the train.
I’m disappointed that the thieves didn’t put it up on eBay. With MTA among the bidders!
My great uncle used to brag to me about when he was a kid he would steal torpedoes from the local engine house, and use them to prank passing trains. Apparently kids will be kids in any generation, and we need to be modernize our cab activations to make trains more theft proof. Literally a simple ID number and pass code solves this problem, ie 1980s tech
How bad is it in New York? Grand Theft Train!
30 mph is considered a “high rate of speed”?!! Bicycles and electric scooters can attain and exceed that speed.
In New York City, 30 mph is considered a “high rate of speed”.
So this has happened before, two 17-year-olds accused. Not stated if the accused are first offeders. What consequences will they face if convicted?
After a school shooting in a Detroit exurb, the 15-year-old first-offender murderer got life without parole, likely the harshest sentence a first-offender 15-year-old has gotten in modern American history. (As a juvenile, he couldn’t have gotten the death penalty, even if Michigan had such, which unfortunately Michigan does not have and hasn’t ever had.)
His parents each got 10 – 15 years.
If we came down like a ton of bricks on juvenile criminals (and where justified, their parents), we’d have less juvenile crime.
Time for remote shutoffs on trains like OnStar can do.
Time for prosecuting criminals.
Mr. Landey, you’re suggesting political seppuku. Especially for the party in power there.