22 CityAndStateNY.com
June 14, 2021
It’s been a long long long llong ong longlong long long long long long long long long long long l ong long long longlong year
The pandemic broke us. The next mayor will need a plan to heal the city’s mental health wounds.
R
IGOBERTO LOPEZ HAD struggled with mental illness since he was a teenager. But what his relatives described as typical, rebellious adolescent behavior escalated as he got older. After turning 18, he left home, bouncing between relatives’ homes before entering New York City’s shelter system in May 2019. Then, as his drug addiction worsened, he started getting in trouble, his brother told The New York Times. Within a few months, Lopez attacked his father with a stick after the man refused to give him money, then showed up at work to threaten him, according to news reports based on police accounts. Weeks later, he punched an officer in the face and spent four months in jail until his father paid bail in March 2020, just as the city went into lockdown. In the fall, Lopez was again arrested in Washington Heights with 48 bags of cocaine and a knife, after which a judge placed him under court-ordered supervision. During his string of arrests, he was taken to the hospital for psychiatric treatment, but each time was released after being held for a few days. Lopez had skipped several court appearances and more than a dozen check-ins by February 12, when he went on a killing spree on the New York City subway. Over the course of 24 hours, Lopez stabbed two people to death on the A-line and seriously injured two others at the 181st Street Station before police apprehended him covered in blood with the murder weapon. “I want people to know, we’re going to do whatever the hell it takes to keep subways safe,”
RAULLAZARO/SHUTTERSTOCK
