MTA watchdog launches probe of camera failure in Brooklyn subway shooting
The MTA’s top watchdog will investigate why the authority’s security cameras malfunctioned during the horrific subway attack in Sunset Park earlier this month, she said Monday.
Acting MTA Inspector General Elizabeth Keating said in a statement that the camera malfunctions on April 12 — which the MTA has blamed on a bad internet connection — have “raised questions about the MTA camera system.”
The probe will investigate why the cameras failed to transmit footage back to NYPD and MTA headquarters, and evaluate the MTA’s “maintenance and repair program for critical equipment,” the statement said.
The MTA has insisted the NYC’s subway surveillance system is “pretty amazing” in response to the revelations that cameras at the 36th Street and 25th Street stations were not working when shooter Frank James escaped after firing into a crowded subway car.
Authority CEO Janno Lieber has argued the camera failures did not impact the NYPD’s ability to catch James after the attack. He said the MTA’s camera failure rate is 1 percent.
“There were.. 36 separate video perspectives that they looked at on the day of the events, and many of those, we had several images of the suspect — getting on the train, getting off the train, riding a bus and so on,” Lieber said at an unrelated press conference last Friday.
“The story of the cameras as the MTA is pretty amazing. We have gone up by 60 percent in a few short years.”
Interim New York City Transit President Craig Cipriano said he was “very pleased” with the MTA’s surveillance camera programs in comments made Monday to the MTA board.
“We field many requests for video at the MTA from the NYPD every day that leads [sic] to the arrest and identification of hundreds of suspects,” Cipirano told board members.
Pressed by non-voting rep Andrew Albert, Cipriano said NYPD officials notify the MTA of faulty cameras every 24 hours. He said transit repairmen were in the process of fixing the connection at 36th Street when the shooting occurred.
“Within the 24-hour period, we would get notified,” Cipriano said. “In this particular place, we were already working in that room when the incident happened, and we had to evacuate.”
