Killings, shootings decreased in first half of the year

Shootings citywide dropped significantly in the first half the year, with victims of firearms declining 25 percent, according to the NYPD. Killings were also down through the first six months, with the department counting 199 homicides through June, 17 fewer than through June last year. 

NYPD officials said the drop in gun crimes was attributable to what acting Commissioner Edward Caban said was the department’s Summer Violence Reduction Plan, underway since May, which deploys officers and resources to areas and neighborhoods where violence is flaring up. The decrease in the number of killings, he said, “does not happen by accident.”

“It is the direct result of focussed, intelligence-based policing,” he said during an NYPD briefing on the department’s crime data July 6. 

While Caban and NYPD officials credited local policing efforts for the 8-percent decline in murders, the drop parallels a nationwide trend that one crime analyst and consultant, Jeff Asher, has said could be among the “largest annual percent changes” in homicide rates ever recorded. 

“If the trend can hold, then that's what we would see,” Asher said in a phone interview this week. “But obviously we're not to that point just yet. But the data through six months can be predictive of the full year.” 

Murders in some large U.S. cities have decreased significantly more than they have in New York, according to police department data Asher has collected. Atlanta’s murder rate has dropped more than 35 percent, Philadelphia’s has declined about 26 percent, while both Baltimore and Los Angeles saw their rates shrink 22 percent through July. Houston, through May, had a more than 23 percent drop. Chicago and Dallas have seen their homicides decrease nearly 8 percent. 

But just as it’s difficult to pinpoint the reasons for why a spring 2020 spike in murders occurred when it did, rock-solid causes for the current decline, however significant, will take time to determine, Asher said. “I do think that the pandemic heading into sort of the background of everyday life is a large factor, but it's hard to say whether there are other factors that are larger or contributing more significantly than that,” he said. 

“It's the type of thing that it'll be years or decades before we really have a super strong understanding of exactly what's driving it,” Asher continued. “And we're at the point where we can just barely describe the trend as it's happening. Explaining the causality is just simply beyond our capability at this point.” 

A few large cities have had more killings so far this year than they did through the same period in 2022. Memphis, for instance, has seen its murder rate spike 39 percent, while murders in Washington, D.C., and Kansas City, Missouri, have climbed about 19 percent and 29 percent, respectively. 

Here, the NYPD has rolled out more dynamic teams of officers, deploying them to neighborhoods experiencing upticks in violent crime. The department has also made a renewed effort to combat so-called “quality-of-life” offenses, such as drinking alcohol in public. 

Despite what are notable decreases in homicides, in New York and elsewhere, murder rates are still significantly higher than they were before the pandemic. Through the first half of 2019, the city had 147 homicides. That number, though, was among the lowest on record for any six-month period. 

A year later, with the city — and the NYPD — contending with the fallout from the coronavirus’ first wave, killings would spike 30 percent, to 192, through June of 2020. The number of homicides through the first six months of 2021 would climb higher still, to 213, before inching up to 216 last year. Still, the number of killings and overall crime rates remain far below those of a few decades ago. 

Most major crimes down

But the decrease in the rate of shootings and shooting victims through June has been significant. Through July 2, the department had recorded 487 shooting incidents, 25 percent fewer than the 652 logged last year. And the 573 people shot through July 2 were nearly 27 percent less than the 781 shot through that date last year, and Chief of Crime Control Strategies Michael Lipetri said that for the last three months, each of the NYPD’s patrol boroughs has had fewer shootings victims this year than last.

Caban noted that shootings had decreased 13 straight weeks year over year. He emphasized that the 23 shootings over the 5-day period spanning the Fourth of July holiday, from July 1 through July 5, were down more than 50 percent compared to 2020’s 49 shootings. 

“We can see steady progress in the NYPD’s fight against violence and disorder,” the acting commissioner said. 

Other major crimes have also dipped this year, among them reported rapes, which are down 10 percent; robberies decreased 4.8 percent; burglaries dipped 10 percent; and grand larcenies were down 1.3 percent. 

But car thefts and felony assaults were up 18 percent and 6 percent, respectively, according to NYPD data. Lipetri attributed the ever-rising tide of car thefts to the ease of jimmying the ignition systems of certain models. “You can basically steal a Honda or a Kia in seconds,” he said, adding that nearly a third of those arrested for stealing cars are under 18.

richardk@thechiefleader.com