A metro plan aimed at dispelling fears. The blowback was immediate.

Just 24 hours after Gov. Kathy Hochul deployed the National Guard and State Police to the New York City subway to quell fears of crime, the unusual show of force Thursday drew intense criticism from several quarters, some of it unexpected.

On the left, Jumaane N. Williams, the city’s public advocate, warned that Ms. Hochul’s plan would “criminalize the public on public transportation.” Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher, a democratic socialist from Brooklyn, said it was a “ham-fisted and authoritarian response” that “validates Republican propaganda about urban lawlessness in an election year.”

Centrists worried that the deployment of troops with long guns — which was broadcast across the country by Fox News and other cable channels — would make New Yorkers and would-be tourists feel less, not more, safe.

“The militarization of a response like this can actually be counterproductive,” said Rep. Pat Ryan, a controversial Hudson Valley Democrat and former Army officer. said on CNN.

Even the top brass of the New York Police Department objected.

In an unorthodox post on XJohn Chell, the department’s chief of patrol, suggested the governor’s approach was irrelevant. He cited recent statistics indicating that transit crime has fallen after a peak in January as more of his officers were on the right track.

“Our transit system is not a ‘war zone’!” he wrote, adding that the governor’s plan to check passengers’ bags was hardly a new technique: “Bag checks have been around since 2005???”

Instead of outside help, Chief Chell argued that state leaders should work to repeal or revise criminal justice laws enacted by Democrats in recent years that make it harder to obtain bail for repeat offenders. These changes are a nonstarter among the ruling Democrats in Albany, but Chief Chell proposed his own solution: “If you want change, vote for the change you want.”

The disagreements exposed the fissures that still divide New York after years of grappling with a pandemic crime wave that has complicated the city’s recovery and damaged the party’s political standing.

Police rarely publicly disclose disagreements with political leaders. But Chief Chell’s statement was particularly unusual given the close collaboration between Mayor Eric Adams, who oversees the department, and Ms. Hochul.

In this case, the mayor and governor apparently disagree. Mr. Adams had asked the state for more money to pay for the city’s police overtime to increase its underground presence. When Ms. Hochul, who has already spent tens of millions of dollars on police overtime, decided on an alternative, the mayor skipped the announcement, citing a conflict.

It was not immediately clear whether City Hall approved Mr. Chell’s statement, but Tarik Sheppard, a top police spokesman, said Chief Chell’s post should not be read as criticism of Ms. Hochul’s plan.

“We would always support more bodies on the road and keep them safe,” Mr Sheppard said. “His comments about a war zone had to do with perception, not with the governor adding the National Guard.”

A spokesperson for the mayor declined to comment.

Ms. Hochul said she had two overarching goals when she developed the policy prescriptions: to reassure New Yorkers that the Labyrinth subway system was safe and to send a political message ahead of this fall’s election that Democrats are taking the issue seriously.

The stakes are high for both.

Crime has generally declined since the height of the pandemic. But the city faced a 45 percent spike in major crimes on the subway in January, as well as a series of recent violent incidents that Ms. Hochul and others fear will undermine the confidence of commuters crucial to the economic recovery of the region. These include stabbings, shootings, passengers pushed onto the tracks and, just a week ago, a train conductor injured in a serious attack.

Republicans have had political success by placing much of the blame on Democrats, starting with Ms. Hochul. Democrats tried to downplay its electoral significance and paid a price in 2022: They lost nearly every major congressional race in New York State, including control of the House of Representatives.

With another major election looming this fall, Ms. Hochul appears determined to avoid a repeat of that debacle.

“My job is to protect the people of this state, and I will do that,” she explained on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Thursday. “And I’m also going to show that Democrats fight crime too.”

The shift comes at the same time Ms. Hochul is trying to take a more aggressive stance on the migrant crisis stretching from the border to New York City. She has appeared frequently on national television in recent weeks to blame Republicans in Congress for rejecting a bipartisan compromise that would have curbed illegal immigration.

Ms Hochul and her allies also pushed back on critics within her own party. She accused some of fear-mongering and singling out just one aspect of a broader five-point transit plan. In addition to flooding the system with 750 National Guard members and 250 others randomly searching commuters’ bags, it also includes $20 million for mental health workers, as well as a legislative proposal to allow judges to allow people who have been convicted are prohibited from driving for a violent crime. the subway.

The governor did say she shared her concerns about the type of long guns National Guard troops carry. A spokesperson said she had asked Thursday that soldiers stop transporting them on the subway.

There was some support for the plan among subway riders and among some moderate and conservative Democrats, including one of Ms. Hochul’s most persistent Democratic critics, Representative Tom Suozzi.

Mr. Suozzi has for years urged his party to take voters’ fears about crime more seriously, even if they are not always matched by statistics. He recently used that approach to win a special election for a Long Island swing seat.

“I applaud the governor for continuing to dig into the crime issue,” he said Thursday. “She is right.”

Yet the voices of critics drowned out those of supporters.

Civil liberties advocates warned that the planned searches of commuters’ bags harked back to the stop-and-frisk policy. Adrienne Adams, the relatively moderate president of the City Council, said there are ways other than “more policing” to address the subway’s problems.

“We need to look at the underlying causes,” she said.

Even some Democrats who were otherwise inclined to agree with the need for extraordinary measures said they had problems not so much with Ms. Hochul’s goal but with its implementation.

“I’m afraid this sends the message to the world that the city is more dangerous than it is,” said Howard Wolfson, a Democratic strategist who served as deputy mayor under Michael R. Bloomberg.

Even Republicans, who in the past have called for more police on the streets and bashed Ms. Hochul, were unwilling to lend their support.

“What we need to focus on is repealing bail reform and criminal justice reform,” said Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, a former New York police officer who is running for a left-leaning seat in the Long Island House in 2022 turned around.

“It’s a complete smoke-and-mirrors show,” he added.

A few hours later, Mr. D’Esposito would attend the State of the Union address; he invited as guests two New York City police officers who were injured during an altercation with migrants in Times Square. Ms. Hochul also attended as a guest of Representative Adriano Espaillat, Democrat of New York.

Reporting was contributed by Maria Kramer, Chelsia Rose Marcius And Jeffery C Mays.