Woman Robbed On Kew Gardens Train Amid Subway Safety Debates

KEW GARDENS, QUEENS — Police said a young woman’s phone was stolen aboard an E train in Kew Gardens on May 13, as mounting transit safety concerns prompt the mayor to add more cops to the subway.

A 25-year-old woman in Kew Gardens was headed southbound on an E train around 2:35 p.m. on Thursday, when a man grabbed her cell phone from her hand as the train entered the Jamaica-Van Wyck subway station, according to police.

The individual then got off the train and ran eastward from the station down Jamaica Avenue, said the NYPD.

This incident follows several subway attacks last week, including one in Forest Hills, which intensified the calls from Gov. Andrew Cuomo and some MTA officials to add more cops to the subway.

Although Mayor Bill de Blasio and other agency officials have pushed back against the call to add more cops, noting that major crimes are actually down 59 percent in the subways, the mayor pledged to deploy 250 more NYPD officers in the subway on Monday — which falls short of the thousand additional cops requested by MTA officers.

Those additional officers will join the 3,000 cops who already cover the NYC transit system.

"Putting all these pieces together, it'll be the largest NYPD transit deployment in over 25 years," said the mayor, who added that NYPD officers will be deployed "in the right places at the right time."

Adding to the ongoing feud between the mayor and top MTA officials, de Blasio pressed the agency to hire officers for its own police force, which they haven’t acted upon since approving the move to do so more than a year ago.

"Why don't they step up? They have a police force, we'll train them for free. They could help out, why not join the effort?” he said.

In Kew Gardens, police still haven’t identified the man who stole the woman’s phone but included a surveillance photo from the station.

They also asked that anyone with information about the incident call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782) or submit a tip online or on Twitter.