Families of NYC subway strike victims say bureaucracy is compounding their grief

Nelson Cross says he’s living a parent’s worst nightmare.

When his stepsons called and told him that his 16-year-old daughter, Ne’isa Herod Cross, had been struck and killed by a southbound G train he said he was stunned. But the following week became even more surreal when he couldn’t get to the bottom of exactly what happened.

“When I was talking to the actual investigator, he told me one thing, which was that they were walking across the catwalk. And then, you know, four friends were able to get away, but … she was caught up in the train by her book bag and was dragged,” Cross said. “But then, also, there was another report that actually said that she was walking down the tunnel alone.”

Police said the train’s operator saw Herod-Cross walking on the tracks and on the catwalk – a narrow platform for MTA workers – inside the tunnel before she was struck around 5 p.m. on March 26. But when her father went to the 4th Avenue–9th Street subway station in Park Slope to see for himself, he said that didn’t add up.

“There is no catwalk at that station whatsoever,” he said.

Cross’ search for answers is not unique. Other families of people hit by trains in unusual circumstances – not official suicides, and not victims of attacks – said it can be especially hard to get clarity because the NYPD and MTA don’t automatically release surveillance video to families.

And both agencies told Gothamist they don’t have standardized procedures. Family members say that subjects them to an ad hoc process forcing those looking for details of their loved ones’ last moments on an odyssey through forms, unclear answers and bureaucratic confusion.

Intentional stonewalling?

An attorney who has represented the families of subway strike victims since the 1990s said he feels the MTA is intentionally stonewalling more and more people in an attempt to avoid litigation.

“Lately, I’ve been finding that both the police department and the transit authority want long extensions of time to gather this information — 60 business days, 90 business days,” said lawyer Alan Shapey. “Then they ask for further extensions and it just seems to be inordinate to me.”

Shapey is currently representing the family of 32-year-old Anthony Cyris Hall, who died last October after getting struck by a train at around 4:30 a.m. at the Jefferson Street station in Brooklyn.

“They know very little other than he went out on a Saturday night in Bushwick, and they get a call early in the morning that he was killed by a train,” Shapey said. “So my job is to try to figure out how that happened and whether or not the transit authority may be responsible.”

In a statement, MTA spokesperson Eugene Remnick said the agency releases surveillance footage to the public “on a case-by-case basis as part of formal litigation proceedings or Freedom of Information requests.”

Anyone can submit a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request to the MTA, either online or by mail, according to the agency’s website. But those requests can take months – if they’re granted at all.

According to court documents filed by Shapey, Hall’s family followed that procedure, submitting a FOIL request for records, reports and surveillance video from the MTA and New York City Transit Authority. The lawsuit alleges that the agencies asked for multiple extensions and ultimately never complied with the request.

Shapey said the delays are not due to a dearth of records: when an incident happens, all communications between the train crew and rail control center are preserved; the conductors and operators give written statements; witnesses are interviewed; road car inspectors check the train for blood and tissue. Data recorders also document the train’s speed as it entered the station, and how far it traveled.

“All this important investigatory information is there that day, yet I can’t access it and I can’t tell them what happened. It’s horrible,” he said.

A man who identified himself as Hall’s father told Gothamist by phone he did not want to talk about the case. Hall’s death certificate, included in the lawsuit, states that his cause of death was “pending further study.” He had been working as a youth counselor, according to the document.

In a statement, MTA Spokesperson Meghan Keegan said “We’ll reserve comment for the appropriate forum and our understanding is the attorney who filed a complaint has already received the requested materials.”

Shapey said he has not received the materials and is headed to court Friday for another hearing in the case.

He said getting body camera footage from the NYPD of police response to train accidents is often easier than dealing with the MTA. The department told Gothamist that there’s no official procedure or policy around providing this type of footage to families.

TikTok horror

Jessica Ajtzac Guarcas, 18, was fatally struck by an E train at the Roosevelt Avenue-Jackson Heights station in Queens, just days after Hall was killed in October. Family members said they were eventually able to see video of the teen’s last moments through the NYPD, but it was a painstaking process.

Police initially said she fainted because she was sick, but the department later changed its account to say she fell because she took a wrong step.

A video taken by a passenger just after Ajtzac Guarcas was struck showed her last moments, and was posted to Tiktok. But it didn’t provide answers for her grieving family, who asked the NYPD to share surveillance video so they could see how she ended up on the tracks in the first place.

Angel Sen, Ajtzac Guarcas’ brother- in-law, said the department initially said no – until the Tiktok video gained traction online.

“I complained to them, why couldn’t we see the [surveillance] video? We were her family, we had the right to see the video,” Sen recalled in a recent interview with Gothamist. “It was hard with the detectives. They speak English and I speak Spanish … and no one helped me talk to them.”

Sen said it took more than two weeks to convince detectives to show him the surveillance footage. He said the NYPD even directed him to the Internal Affairs Bureau, which investigates police misconduct, to make an official complaint about the delay.

Twenty days after the initial incident, Sen said detectives showed the surveillance video to him and Ajtzac Guarcas’ sisters.

“We saw that she just fainted, she just fell. But we really don’t know what caused it, because she wasn’t sick,” he said.

But the family was not able to obtain a copy to send back to Ajtzac Guarcas’ parents in Guatemala.

“In the end, we were only able to tell them about what happened,’ Sen said.

A spike in track deaths

According to data released by the MTA, the number of people ending up on the tracks – and being struck by trains– has increased in the past few years, even as ridership declined during the pandemic.

Though fewer people were riding the subway in 2020 and 2021, the MTA reported that track trespassers increased by 20% from 2019 to 2021.

In 2022, 220 people were hit by trains, 88 of them fatally, according to data released to Gothamist by the MTA. In 2023, those numbers went up: 241 people were hit, and 97 died.

Out of 537 people who ended up on the tracks in the first four months of 2022, an MTA study shows that many of them went onto the tracks for some voluntary reason, and 40 were fatally struck. During that time period, only one person died because they were pushed onto the tracks. Eleven deaths were suicides.

In response to the rise of trespassers, the MTA has proposed a variety of preventative measures, including better messaging, suicide prevention initiatives, track intrusion detection technology and platform screen doors.

In January, the MTA began installing yellow barriers along the platforms at several stations as part of a pilot program, including 191st Street, the West 8 St – NY Aquarium​​ Station, and the Clark Street station.

But Shapey said that once someone dies on the tracks, the agency no longer tries to help them or their families.

“Part of the problem is the transit authority lives in a legal state of mind where people on the tracks are trespassers, and they have no rights,” he said. “When you take a case against the transit authority, you have to be prepared for a long battle.”

The MTA would not release the number of deaths so far in 2024, saying their database has a six-month lag time so incidents can be fully investigated. But four people were fatally struck during a single 24-hour period last month.

Ne’isa Herod Cross was one of the victims that week. Her father told Gothamist he plans to petition the MTA to allow him to view the video from the station where she died. If they refuse, Cross said he will hire a lawyer. He said it doesn’t make sense that police are quickly able to share surveillance images of people committing crimes in the subway system, yet can’t provide the same transparency to grieving families.

“If they have that footage available for foolishness, why do they not have that same camera footage available for things that are important? Every family needs to know what’s going on,” Cross said.

Ne’isa wanted to be a doctor when she grew up, her father said. Jessica Ajtzac Guarcas had been working at an empanada restaurant, saving up money to send to her parents back home.

Cross said he understands the MTA’s liability concerns, but said he’s just searching for answers.

“You know, they’re worried about the malpractice part of it,” he said “I’m worried about how my daughter passed away.”