> Only now, 365 days later, can I express what Michelle meant to us and how her death continues to affect us. Michelle is not the first daughter that I have lost. My wife and I lost our second daughter, when she was an infant, to crib death, her life cut short before we even knew her. Together they represent a hole in our lives that can never be filled. My wife, my son and I mourn their passing every day.

Absolutely heartbreaking

While reading I was moved to tears. For anyone in the comments who hasn’t read this letter, read it. It’s beautifully written, but this paragraph sticks out:

“The millions of people in New York City may not agree on everything, but we can agree that New York City should be safe for those who call it home. Michelle did not live with fear of being attacked. She took the subway to work; she was not reckless about her surroundings. If Michelle were still here, she would urge us to come together to build a safer community. This is not about politics; this is about caring for each other and humanity.”

In addition to other things, I wish we would implement screen doors on subway platforms. I don’t care how much it costs, saving lives is worth it. Solving the mental health and homeless crisis is something we definitely should be trying to do but that will take decades. Funding and installing screen doors on every platform (but especially high traffic ones) could take under a year if we were motivated to do it.

I feel bad for this father, he'll never see his beloved daughter ever again while that POS who murdered her will probably be free one day.

What a tragic and heartbreaking story. May this man and his family know no more pain.

Senseless tragedy. This article brought me to tears

I think of her often. It’s beautiful to hear from her father, who clearly adores her. Can’t help but cry.

" But knowing that Michelle was murdered by being shoved in front of an oncoming train is unacceptable. That is not a fitting ending for a woman who shared the best of herself with others."

The political leaders and administrators failed him and his family. The public agencies failed him and his family. The MTA who have had a book's worth of prior incidents of mentally unstable people harming commuters and people being struck by trains, accident or malicious, failed him and his family. And more importantly, they all failed Michelle.

This entire tragedy was so heartbreaking. The run of violence in 2021 + early 2022 was so horrendous

And the deranged homeless are still allowed to live in the subway system. Nothing has been done to prevent this happening again.

>“The millions of people in New York City may not agree on everything, but we can agree that New York City should be safe for those who call it home. [...] If Michelle were still here, she would urge us to come together to build a safer community. This is not about politics; this is about caring for each other and humanity.”

That's unfortunately not a consensus in New York City. This sub has been one example of that.

If Michelle were still here and urging us to build a "safer community", she would be on the receiving end of fringe groups dishonestly accusing her of being a "far-right tough-on-crime conservative" for suggesting that NYC is not safe enough.

I’m sad, I’m angry, and Im sick and tired of the fact that our elected officials don’t care enough to do what is necessary to keep New Yorkers safe. They would rather spend that money for things that won’t help us at all.

To those of you who say this moved you to tears, posting the usual things about the NYPD and platform doors (which will never, ever be installed in all but a few stops and won't stop rapes, stabbings, or robberies), I pose this to you: what are you actually going to do about it?

Are you going to write a letter to your local state and city reps about this? Do you understand the fate of all the Martial Simons is impacted by judges, district attorneys, and lawmakers? That New Yorkers need to demand they do something for Michelle Go and all the other victims of attackers known to the public and police, left to rot in the street or to hurt people because the courts and the laws of this state say their "rights" to do so surpass our right to an uneventful ride home? The right to walk down a street that could use some more lighting, without being afraid of a brick to the skull?

I realize the people who will read this sort of post are mostly self-selecting and seem to take violence seriously, but I also suspect most of you that would read a longform from a grieving Asian father still really won't get it. You say this rips out your heart. You might see your own parents and family. You might even see yourself in Michelle Go. She was like many of you in many ways, not least in that unlike many NYC crime victims, she was upper middle class, educated, worked a white collar job, probably lived in a nice neighborhood, not a violent one where crime would be an ever-present personal concern. But she was still a woman, she took the subway, and most importantly, she was on the same platform as a man that told a psych doctor he thought about pushing a woman to death. That last thing is a choice someone made for her many times over.

Horrific beating or murder on video after the other, it never seems as if this is a priority to the vast majority of people that participate in this sub or live in this city - certainly not in Manhattan, where this happened, and where so many of these incidents occur. If it were, this would be deciding races.

People just post a comment about cops playing Candy Crush (as if their failures or role here is just that simple; the self-indulgence of it, when the same people also blame the cops for making arrests based on viral videos sent around by abolitionists that will lie for the cause...damned no matter what, useless or proactive, damned by the same redditors that can't even theoretically imagine what it's like to arrest someone that will escalate, kick, punch to avoid that) or the idea that free housing for Martial Simon will solve this, and leave it at that. That's as invested as they are. It's just another way of trivializing a woman's death and the many choices that preceded that fatal shove.

Meanwhile the lawmakers at least some of you put in office have shuttered prisons and hospitals with no comparable bridge, and gave those dollars to ideologically captured "community orgs" that do nothing, are not accountable to anyone. These people gave themselves a thirty percent salary increase for pisspoor performance on any of these problems, while New Yorkers are scrounging and paying $6 for a dozen eggs.

Are you even aware of it? Did it occur to you this is an issue that can be voted on, for all this bullshit about "mental health", the patronizing sloganeering? Haven't you figured out almost nobody in City Council or the state cares about preventing these incidents consistently through "mental healthcare" either, or that the problem of severe mental illness doesn't match up with their shitty solutions (favors to their friends)?

Martial Simon was paranoid schizophrenic, an addict, and a violent ex con that was cycled in and out of the psych system. There was clearly no followup after he was released for armed robbery. When Go was pushed, people here posted they recognized him from the 4 and 5 train. His own sister said he refused to take his meds. What agency is working on that at any level of government, when we're talking about thousands of men just like him?

https://web.archive.org/web/20220205100916/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/05/nyregion/martial-simon-michelle-go.html

"Mr. Simon’s medical records have not been made public. But an advocate for homeless people who was given access to some of them said they show that in 2017 he told a psychiatrist at the state-run Manhattan Psychiatric Center that he thought he would push a woman to the train tracks someday."

He shouldn't have been on the street. He should have been told, now you're on parole, and you can either comply with medical treatment, or go back to jail. If he threatened people or was arrested for menacing, then he should have been banned from public transit. There are many things the city and state could do to help with this problem, and they refuse. They should face unending consequences for it.

They can get away with it because they know you won't do what very little you can do, and you won't punish them for their failure. Or worse, as someone else noted, most people will defend purposeful inaction, waste, condescension, and the active unraveling of our criminal justice system and psych wards, giving Martial Simon free reign of the streets.

Not even the Asian community of this city cares enough to stop voting for candidates that despise them and sneer at their screams for help, although that might be changing in Brooklyn.

Nothing has changed and nothing is going to change until those that - far from mere neglect - actively contribute to a this climate are punished. We can start by ceasing to vote for any candidate of either party that doesn't talk about this problem. Every primary season, Democratic candidates campaign on quality of life and safety, and every primary season, they lose to the most horrible people that run...because that's who is connected and gets big bucks from left orgs and from self-serving progressive donor class members that will be insulated from violence. Or think they are.

So I blame voters. I blame the press. I blame these people for lying during elections. There's no public forum anywhere in this whole city where people really seem to take what they say their feelings are (anger, grief, fear after these incidents), put them to action, and demand material outcomes. It makes these discussions and the periodic, short-lived expressions of grief uncanny and seemingly false. Anyone who talks about this plainly is undermined, gaslit, insulted, or suppressed everywhere.

Unless you're willing to rise and demand better from your representatives and scuttle those that refuse to act, your posts about weeping reading this man's words are like everything else in the average self-absorbed New Yorker's/redditor's day: you're just briefly distracted because this piece talks about death, and it's coming from someone that reminds you of your own parent.

But this is a man describing a loss he will never recover from. Like most survivors of homicides, they likely will never actually have recourse against all the people that knew who Martial Simon was, knew he was dangerous, and just let him stalk the subways. No lawsuits, no legal changes, nothing at all to hold the state or lawmakers that have invoked Michelle Go's name to campaign accountable for their own voting records, and the lie it puts to their performative tears. This family is serving his own life sentence. They will never be granted belief their daughter/sister a frightening, violent, wholly preventable death because someone thought she deserved to be pushed.

We keep seeing these attacks due to the incompetence or zealotry embedded in our courts, state agencies, and lawmaking bodies. We hand power to lobbying orgs that are diametrically opposed to implementing restraints on dangerous, antisocial behavior - and I'm sorry, but yes, that includes jail for breaking the law against victims and injuring them. These incidents are systemic.

So how come nobody responsible, like the parole board, is being punished or reformed? How come no one in the media is asking about it or what lawmakers are doing to change this, and then following up in six months or in subsequent cases with all the Martial Simons out there? How come there was no press conference about the agencies responsible for men like Martial Simon, and how they're going to handle the mentally ill? I saw a bunch of bullshit about violence interruptors from City Council members. I continue to see members of the legislature use Michelle Go's name to campaign for the status quo of favoring the rights of Martial Simon and those that are dangerous to others, over those of the victims, you, and me. That's all this is to them. A campaign event and a cash grab in return for worse than nothing.

I'm not just sad. I'm angry. I'm a changed person after the last few years in this city, watching people be beaten or murdered on camera. Are you?

I want someone with power to help, and follow through.

To everybody calling this “senseless” and a “tragedy”, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but if your post history defends the inept, corrupt and useless politicians like Adams and Hochul that you and other such people in this city elected, who keep laws in place that coddle criminals and DAs in place who refuse to sentence them to consequences, who close their eyes to perpetuate this type of crime, your manufactured sympathy means nothing. You’re part of the problem.

if not a death sentence or life in prison - the guy that pushed her needs to be sentenced permanently to a mental institution where is isolated from the world 24/7 in a confined room with zero windows and chance for escape. Deliver his food and water via the wall slots with zero human interaction. Clearly he is incapable of feeling anything, including empathy, so it isn't a punishment, but rather a safeguard for society & the institution housing him.

here we are a year later. barely any policy changes. yes more nypd on the subway & stations - but for how long? and where are the barriers at subway stations that would prevent so many deaths from pushing? so many falls? medical emergencies where people fall onto the tracks?

a productive, tax paying, HOMELESS HELPING, member of society is dead because we place such a high value on the life and feelings of the type of person who murdered her. We have a good person in society, dead. And a bad person, not only alive, but being sustained by the tax dollars of other productive society members.

As a parent myself, reading this rips me in two. Nobody should have to deal with such senseless loss.

[deleted]

RIP

I’m surprised he hasn’t been mugged himself.