Citywide shootings steadily declined for the past 13 weeks, reported Edward Caban, the acting NYPD commissioner, at a briefing on this year’s second quarter crime stats last Thursday, July 6. Gun violence is down by 12% compared to 2022 and the number of victims cratered by roughly a quarter.
“So far in 2023, nearly 200 fewer New Yorkers have been shot compared to the first six months of 2022,” said Caban. “Again, that is not just the number. These are hundreds of real people, hundreds of families who are spared the devastating impacts of gun violence. But again, until shootings are down 100%, we will never be satisfied with just numbers. One shooting victim is one too many.”
So what’s working for the NYPD? Jeffrey Maddrey, the chief of department, credited a gameplan to target “hotspots” for police coverage, assigning more than 1,000 additional officers into these approximately 70 citywide “zones.”
Neighborhoods most impacted by gun violence—many with majority Black and brown populations—are seeing improvements in 2023. Year-to-date, there were 20 fewer shootings in bordering Brooklyn precincts 73rd and 75th, comprising Brownsville, Ocean Hill, East New York, and Cypress Hills. That’s more than a 30% decrease. There are also 65 fewer boroughwide shootings in The Bronx so far this year, roughly a 27% drop.
“We understand that each crime represents a potential grandfather, grandmother, mother, father, a child—each one with their own story,” said Maddrey. “And I’m proud to report that we have driven major crime down and shootings down in those deployment zones.”
Some of those represented were multiple minors hit by stray bullets throughout the recent Fourth of July weekend. This past Saturday, a 35-year-old deli co-owner was fatally shot in a Staten Island robbery. And on the same day, a 25-year-old man allegedly carried out a shooting spree through Brooklyn and Queens on a scooter, leaving an 86-year-old grandfather dead and three other victims injured. The suspect allegedly fired at random people in at least two other incidents that day, according to police.
NYPD top cops also boasted reductions in five of the seven major categories this past year, which Caban credited to “focused intelligence-driven policing.”
But while index crime is down almost across the board as of last week, total crimes are actually up by a tiny margin thanks to an explosion of carjackings and an uptick in felony assaults. But all other property crimes, along with murder and rape are down this year.
An uptick of car thefts correlates with more youth arrests—according to Chief of Crime Control Strategies Michael LiPetri, 32% of those arrested for grand larceny of a vehicle are under age 18. He also noted a significant minority of robbery and gun-related arrests were also city youth.
Ultimately, the crime-fighting strategies boil down to more enforcement, including throughout the recent Fourth of July weekend when shootings were expected to be high.
“Look at the 10 shooting incidents. The NYPD was present for six out of those 10 incidents—not just there at that time, [but] we were there for hours policing very tough scenes,” said LiPetri. “Some of those scenes had hundreds of people present [and] with the hundreds of people present came fireworks, disorderly groups [and] quality of life conditions. And guess what? A lot of them had guns on them. So six out of ten were present. Can you imagine if we weren’t in the right areas?”
But while the NYPD maintains “precision policing” strategies to engage the “right” suspects, the department also handed out around 5,000 more criminal court summonses this past quarter. A few weeks ago, Amsterdam News reported Black and brown New Yorkers received roughly 85% of appearance tickets for low-level, non-fingerprintable offenses last year.
Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member and writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.