NYC attack victim slams city leaders on Dr. Phil, warns of 'more victims like me'
Dr. Phil's guest implored, 'We really need somebody to really step down, because the people in charge right now, they’re not making no rules.'
Dr. Phil spoke with the victim of a devastating attack in a New York City subway station Thursday, sparking a conversation about holding political officials accountable through elections.
The woman, Elizabeth "Liz" Gomes, was reportedly "beaten by a homeless ex-con in a horrific attack caught on video," the episode’s description summarized. It continued, "Her alleged attacker has spent time in prison for attempted murder and assault in the past, and Liz and her partner, Clement, say they want to know why this man was out on the streets to strike again."
After playing security footage of the attack on Gomes, show host Dr. Phil McGraw asked her, "When you look at this and you think about the law enforcement there and D.A., they’ve made promises about protection and reacting to the increase in crime. Do you feel like they’ve done what they said they were going to do?"
"They haven’t done nothing at all," Gomes, whose vision is still impaired in one eye from the attack, replied. "Because if they was doing something, if they were making plans to do something, we wouldn’t be seeing this increasingly violence that’s been happening around the city."
Dr. Phil speaks to the victim of a shocking attack. (CBS)
She added that leaders are not "doing what they are supposed to do to keep this city safe. I think we need more rules, we need more laws to make a change, because if you do something, and you’re going to come out with a little misdemeanor or a little ticket, you’re not going to be scared to do anything at all."
"We need somebody who’s gonna really step up and make [criminals] scared" by showing there will be significant consequences for transgressions. She warned that the city needs a leader like that "or else there’s gonna be a lot of more victims like me, and trust me, you don’t wanna feel what I’m going through," Gomes declared.
She urged viewers to imagine what it's like "sitting with your eyes closed almost 20 hours a day" and "the only thing you can remember is the last things that happened to you before this occurred."
She then suggested that the people currently in charge, politically, have failed to the point they should resign.
"We really need somebody to really step down, because the people in charge right now, they’re not making no rules, and it seems like they’re just doing things to make their life better and their family better, and what about us?" Gomes said.
41-year-old Waheed Foster attacked Elizabeth Gomes at a Queens subway station. (Fox News)
Gomes has previously criticized Mayor Eric Adams for failing to keep his promises to New Yorkers and raised awareness about the ongoing crime crisis across the city.
Six days after Gomes' attack, New York City Council Member Tiffany Cabán tweeted that "Subway violence is a one-in-a-million event" despite soaring crime statistics.
"I would say that's very ridiculous for her to say it," Gomes told Fox News in October. "How could she even say that when 99 percent of these violence [sic] are coming from the subways? There's no help there."
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On Thursday, Dr. Phil observed, "When it comes time to vote, all these people, these commissioners, these D.A.’s, these mayors, all these people in every city across the country, they work for you, and if they’re not doing the job you think they should do, you can speak with your vote, and you can say that."
The host continued, noting that "in New York, overall crime has increased. It’s reported to be up 15.2 percent. And it wasn’t great before, but it’s reported to be up, and, you know, somebody needs to address that."
Dr. Phil criticized how "prosecutors only ask for prison for the most serious offenses, and you know there are all kinds with people back out on the street," he warned. "The best predictor of future behavior is relevant past behavior. If you’ve got somebody that’s a violent criminal, particularly somebody that’s attacking at random, and you put them back out on the street, then you can predict they are going to attack random people again."
Commuters wait on the platform at the Times Square subway station in New York, US, on Wednesday, May 25, 2022. (Stephanie Keith/Bloomberg)
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The host followed up by quoting more damning statistics.
"The re-offense rate is over 20 percent, and that’s for people that are arrested and charged with felonies, and that’s less than two months later, and that’s NYPD data," he said. "So if you arrest and charge somebody for a violent offense, and then you put them back on the street, one in five of them re-offend within two months, so you know there’s a danger of putting them back out there."
Fox News' Madeline Coggins contributed to this report.
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