NYC migrant shelters adding cameras as violence spikes: ‘Just wait till they get a hold of guns’
The violence is so bad at New York City’s migrant shelters that authorities are installing security cameras and considering metal detectors as cops grapple with “an influx of knives — just wait till they get a hold of guns,’’ officials and law enforcement sources say.
The latest bloodshed includes a fatal stabbing Jan. 7 and Thursday’s separate massive brawl and knifing — both at the tent-city shelter on Randall’s Island.
“They’re not using metal detectors. … If they were, the knives wouldn’t be happening,” a security guard at the site told The Post on Friday, noting that shelter arrivals are not screened beyond having their IDs scanned.
“Everyone can have a knife, can have something. So it’s not a good environment,” he said.
“The security is not good. It’s not safe. If you tell me it’s safe, it’s not. We are trying to do our best, but we are outnumbered,” he said.
Jose Chica, 42, a recent arrival from Ecuador, said conditions at the shelter are “dangerous.
“There are a lot of problems here. I don’t mess with anyone. No one.”
Security cameras were in the process of being installed at the makeshift shelter Friday morning, with discussions ongoing about adding metal detectors to further enhance security there and at other sites — as the city struggles with the massive influx of South and Central American migrants, more than 150,000 in total, who have arrived in New York since the spring of 2022.
A law-enforcement source told The Post on Friday that it is time to get real about security measures at migrant facilities, and that failing to do so puts public safety at risk.
“We cannot continue down this road of taking in hundreds and hundreds of people without establishing such security measures. We need to do this for the sake of the staff, migrants and New Yorkers in general,” the source said.
“We can’t continue to have thousands of people congregate under such constrained conditions without any metal detectors or cameras. Now we’re dealing with an influx of knives — just wait till they get a hold of guns.”
The stepped-up safety measures began after a pair of knife attacks this month, including the Jan. 7 fatal stabbing at Randall’s Island that cops said sprung from a fight over a woman.
The 24-year-old victim was viciously assaulted at the shelter by four people after he talked to one of the men’s girlfriends, sources said. One of the attackers pulled a knife and stabbed him in the neck and chest area. The victim was rushed to Harlem Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Asylum-seekers told The Post at the time that crime has festered as migrant groups have factionalized, splitting off into armed “camps” based on their ethnic group and country of origin.
“Everyone has a knife,” migrant Mauricio Pinto said after the fatal stabbing.
The simmering violence has boiled over into all-out brawl on more than one occasion, most recently Thursday afternoon when two rival groups of migrants — armed with knives and rocks — began fighting inside the shelter before the conflict spilled into the streets, sources said.
A 24-year-old man was stabbed during the chaos. He was taken by EMTs to Harlem Hospital and listed in stable condition. The attacker remained at large as of late Friday afternoon, cops said. Eighteen people were arrested after the rumble.
The incident echoed another group fight Jan. 6, when violence erupted outside an East Village migrant center in Manhattan after someone attempted to cut the line of some 400 asylum-seekers and allegedly spilled his coffee on others in the queue.
One man punched the line-cutter and tumbled to the ground in the ensuing melee, witnesses said.
At least two NYPD officers were injured in the scuffle, and two men were arrested.
Sky-high tensions and grim conditions have led to at least one domestic violence incident at Randall’s Island, also. A migrant allegedly struck his partner and was arrested Friday morning.
Even beyond the climate of unchecked violence, the deteriorating conditions at Randall’s Island are apparently taking a frightening toll on the health of its temporary residents.
On Friday afternoon, a teenage girl suffered a seizure in one of the small tents erected outside the shelter for those who have been told to find another home. A migrant carried her in his arms, desperately trying to find help as her legs trembled and jerked.
Police on site took her into a van and comforted her before EMS arrived about 20 minutes later.
“They don’t have a bed in there. They stay here because it’s better than being in the street,” a migrant told reporters of those in the ad-hoc tents, adding that the woman who suffered the seizure sometimes hops the fence to use the bathroom at the shelter to stay warm.
