Subway victim’s partner says Daniel Enriquez took train to avoid Uber prices
The live-in partner of NYC subway shooting victim Daniel Enriquez railed against rampant Big Apple transit violence Monday — as he said the slain man was taking the subway because he didn’t want to pay Uber’s prices anymore.
“He stopped taking Uber f—ing maybe a couple of weeks ago,” Adam Pollack, 54, told The Post. “He always took Uber. Has since the pandemic to work, you know, and on Sundays.
“He wasn’t a subway person,” Pollack said. “It was the surge pricing, the $40 each way. He just didn’t want to, so he stopped about two weeks ago and started taking the subway again.”
He now blames surging crime in the city subway system for taking the life of his partner of 18 years.
“It keeps happening and nobody does anything,” Pollack said. “He was going to brunch. It’s just so random. They’ll catch [the killer] and so what? Is anyone really outraged? Is anything going to change?”
“There are so many crazy people on the subway,” Pollack said. “There is no money in fixing the homeless. The people who work from home, everyone who is more wealthy is home, working from home. They don’t care. Nothing will change.”
Enriquez, 48, was in the last car of a Manhattan-bound Q train around 11:42 a.m. Sunday when a deranged gunman shot him in the chest and mortally wounded him.
Police said the shooting was random and unprovoked.
The shooter, who is still on the loose, fled the Canal Street station, leaving Enriquez dying on the floor of the subway train.
Pollack, who said he met Enriquez in 2004, said his partner, who worked for Goldman Sachs, typically stayed out of the subways until recently, opting for Uber to make the 20-minute ride to work — until surge pricing pushed him back into the tubes.
He said Enriquez went into work four days a week and on Sunday to shoot pool at a Manhattan bar and then to have brunch.
“He was going to have brunch with his brother at Juliette’s in Williamsburg,” Pollack said. “I don’t know why he started taking the subway. He said it was surge pricing for Uber.
“He stopped taking Uber f—ing maybe a couple of weeks ago,” he said. “He always took Uber. Has since the pandemic to work, you know, and on Sundays. He wasn’t a subway person. It was the surge pricing, the $40 each way. He just didn’t want to, so he stopped about two weeks ago and started taking the subway again.”
Pollack said Enriquez was born in Williamsburg but moved to California with his family as a young child, and later moved to Seattle before returning to the Big Apple to attend New York University.
“He was one of those lucky guys who got a job at Morgan Stanley right out of school and then got a better job at Goldman Sachs. He worked at Morgan Stanley from the late ’90s to 2013. Then Goldman in 2013.”
Pollack said his partner was a gifted and talented man who had a master’s in Latin studies.
Enriquez taught himself guitar at the start of the pandemic lockdown and had learned Italian and Portuguese, in addition to the English and Spanish he grew up speaking.
Pollack said Enriquez’s parents hail from the Mexican city of Chiautla.
“He was a nice, interesting person,” he said. “A lot of depth going on.”
But he said Enriquez moved back to the city in the ’90s, “when New York City was like Disney World. Now there are people wandering around who need to be not wandering around.”
He said his partner’s senseless death has only reaffirmed his fear of the subway and the rampant crime that he says has plagued the system.
“I don’t love the subway,” Pollack said. “I know how dangerous New York is. It took me two years to get back on the subway. I don’t feel safe on the subway. I know how to pay full attention. I’m not happy about how this is now.”
“I’m not into fake change, political correctness,” he added. “It has to be real change.
“This wasn’t racially motivated,” he said of Enriquez’s slaying. “It was crazy motivated.”
