New York City issued its latest crime report Thursday, which showed record lows for gun violence, subway crime, and homicides.
The city experienced the lowest quarter in history for instances of gun violence, which decreased by nearly 25% since last quarter, with only 140 shootings. A little less than a third of these shootings resulted in arrests by Thursday, and police recovered over 1,300 illegal firearms. The number of homicides was 17, the second-lowest quarter and over 50% less than this time last year.
“While today’s numbers show crime continues to plummet across the five boroughs, today’s drop is nothing new — we have seen five straight quarters of declining crime, including the past six months,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said at a press conference Thursday. “Thanks to the tens of thousands of brave men and women of the NYPD, New York City remains the safest big city in America, and we are only getting safer.”
Adams is a former NYPD officer who is running for reelection. While the city elected him as a Democratic candidate, he has since decided to run as an independent.
Subway crimes decreased to a 27-year low, and this was the first quarter in seven years without any murders on the transit system, marking a win for Adams. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy threatened to withhold federal funding in an attempt to hold city officials “accountable” for the “unacceptable” state of the transit system.
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“After years of soft-on-crime policies, our department is stepping in to restore order,” Duffy said of the New York City subway last month.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch admitted some subway rules concerning smoking, drinking alcohol, and taking up multiple seats “weren’t consistently enforced” before this quarter. Officers now patrol the subway and are instructed to intervene for even minor infractions.