NY Daily News: January marks 24-year low for NYC murders, shootings; rapes up

Cops recorded the lowest number of murders and shootings in any January since 1993, NYPD officials said Monday, though rapes were up.

There were just 20 murders reported in the first month of the year, compared with 22 in January 2016 — a 9.1% decline. 

By comparison, there were a whopping 189 murders in 1993 — or six a day.

Rape in January rose from 101 in 2016 to 110 in 2017 — an increase of 8.9%. Officials at a press conference about the stats did not elaborate on the change.

Last month saw 58 shootings, compared to 59 in January of 2016 — a decline of 1.7%. By comparison, there were 477 shootings in 1993.

And for only the second time since 1993, there were fewer than 8,000 major crimes reported to police in the month. Overall crime dropped by 2.7% compared to January 2016.

“2017 is picking up where 2016 left off, reducing violence and driving crime down further,” said Police Commissioner James O’Neill.

The Five Boroughs, New York

These are the most conflicting of times. Judging by these reports from the NYPD, as impressive as they are, well as should give the citizenry great comfort and sense of security, but how come it’s still a tad scary out there. And why of the scarce crime being committed, is the severity of the acts as comparably violent and sadistic as the bad old days of NYC, with the exception of high murder rates.

The other day in the East Village at 2:30 in the afternoon, 2 men pummeled another man to the concrete, repeatedly assaulting him with kicks and punches. In broad daylight as some people stopped and looked and walked away. The perpetrators jumped in a car and fled.

Sure it’s just one incident but this is in a massively gentrified area, and inhabited with modern art galleries, high rise luxury towers and obscenely high rate walk-up apt. rentals and bars and trendy upscale artisanal restaurants and faux dive bars, and barstaurants. Which makes this public beat down so shocking that it actually happened today and not, to quote the city statisticians, 1983, where in the same area it was surrounded by poverty, rampant and blatant drug use and crime, and dilapidated and hallowed out tenement buildings and rubble and garbage strewn lots.

Because the city may have actually reached the tipping point in curbing crime. Or maybe it’s so overpopulated in the metropolitan area now from transients and tourist influx and the new towers are so high they are casting eclipsing shadows, that it’s easy to overlook some things. Especially to people that have to live by or just happened to be there at the moment of the scene of the crime.

And in every report about a recent incident, either by obligation or complicity with the NYPD, the news dailies sometimes puts positive crime stats almost after every report, no matter how big or small the article is.

Take for example the lists provided by the Daily News above. When the January results came out, they not only correlate the month of this year with last, but also from 24 years ago. The strange and unsettling thing is that the lowering is not much of an improvement, just 8 less serious crimes. But juxtaposed with a year from the bad old days, the first year of Giuliani Time by the way, it gives quite a charming and soothing impression that the 5 Boroughs is a shining utopia in comparison.

I have come to this theory when a few grisly crimes happened on the same block a month or so apart on Liberty Avenue, South Richmond Hill, Queens, NY. One maniac stalked his ex-wife where she worked, stabbed her multiple times and tried to behead her with a knife he bought at the 99 cent store, right at the corner of the block. A month later, on the same block around the corner, a man got shot in front of a nite club over a chain. This has more significance, despite how rare these things happen compared to 33 years ago, because it was the city’s first murder of 2017.

Another theory that came to me was the way the mayor and upper brass of the NYPD has described certain incidents and belittled crime trends when asked about them from the press. Especially from a police chief in Greenpoint who redefined what constituted a rape. I have referred to this previously as the Marginal Victims Unit. But that telling and tone deaf response may be policy and protocol, previous to that tone deaf statement, Mayor de Blasio and Commissioner Bratton undermined the level of crime in areas by and inside public parks last year.

A Walk In The Park: Park crime jumps 32%

Crime in city parks jumped thirty-two percent over the last nine months.  Violent crime rose nineteen percent and increased in all four categories.   Five hundred and two people reported being the victim of violent crime during the first three quarters of 2016.  Robberies increased twenty-nine percent.

The de Blasio administration continues to maintain that park crime is,”rare.”

Violent crime rose nineteen percent and was up in all four categories during the first three quarters of 2016.   Five hundred and two people reported being the victim of violent crime – eight people were murdered, fourteen were raped, three-hundred and two people were robbed, and 178 were victims of felony assaults.

The author neglected, as well as he should, what the crime stats of 1993 in parks were.

Reading the papers, usually the NY Daily News, I started tearing some articles from the papers, putting together a roughshod crime blotter, and couldn’t help but noticed a disturbing trend in contrast to the sunny touting of lower crime stats by city officials and their parts gleeful and exasperatingly relieved expressions. These various crimes were happening frequently in less niche areas of Brooklyn, Southeast Queens which has seen a gradual increase in brazen criminal activity and The Bronx is still experiencing high criminal activity. As well as locales with high rental market rates and areas targeted for gentrification.

• Two teens got shot in E. Flatbush at 2:30 PM. by an assailant who jumped in a car and fled. A woman got hit by a stray bullet from marauding gun toting bike riders in Bushwick at 4:30 PM
• A commuter was set on fire by a teenager on the G train, as the lowlife laughed at the victim. A 19 year old was stabbed after an argument on the J Train at 3:00 PM. A man tried to shove a person on the tracks at the City Hall 2 and 3 lines at 4:00 PM
• In Bed-Stuy A guy smoking crack sets himself on fire and continues to walk. A sex offender murdered a woman in Flatbush and intimidated a garbage man to drive him to dumps to get rid of the severed remains. A 28 year old man from Springfield Gardens attempts to kill his mother with a screwdriver, subsequently shot dead by police.
• A homeless woman from Brooklyn took her child out naked in the streets. A mother beat her son to death in a bathtub after he dropped an egg in their apt. A mother strangled her 15 month old daugther to death in Elmhurst.
• A Guy stabbed is wife and 17 year old son to death then shot himself in Luarelton after he attempted to kill her before. A 20 year old man was stabbed to death in East New York by Crescent St. at 3:00 PM,  A Bronx man was beaten to death coming off an elevator by a brute with 20 prior arrests.
• A Mother and her two sons got slashed by a attacker in Brownsville. A Retired Cop in Staten Island got shot to death  at 6:30 PM
• A tailor got stabbed repeatedly by a robber for 80 bucks, A 22 year old recidivist criminal beat a 76 year old man in the 167th station 4 train in the Bronx, and and 83 year old woman on the Fifth avenue 7 station.A Bronx 78 year old man was mugged, his face bloodied to a pulp in Norwood, stealing 220 dollars, Also in the Bronx, a man holds an elevator door open for an 81 year old Bronx woman, then shows a knife and robs 200 dollars from her in Mount Eden. A 93 year old got robbed of 1,110 dollars by 3 masked bandits at 7:30 Pm  in Harlem, 145st. A 78 year old man got attacked from behind was choked and robbed of 750 dollars and A 53 year old infirm wheelchair bound man got mugged for his cell phone and debit card relaxing in front of his building by a thug brandishing a knife in Brownville. Another wheelchair using man in Manhattan got shot with a taser by 3 crooks and robbed him of 107 dollars in the Lower East Side waiting for the bus by project apartment buildings. A 78 year old woman in East Flatbush was bludgeoned to death with a hammer by an unknown assailant.A teenage male punched an 88 year old man in Fordham in the Bronx
• A Woman in Hollis was held up in front of her house taking the garbage out and the perp robbed 3000. Another woman from Queens Village was jumped and stabbed by 3 mooks
• A Pharmacist in Woodhaven was found stabbed to death in his studio over drugs.
• Four individuals beat and molested a homeless man with a Coke bottle who was collecting scrap in Corona. They stole 15 dollars. A Girl was shoved on the subway tracks after being pummeled by a gang of over 10 boys they stole her hat jacket and 20 dollars
•  A cashier at a pharmacy got assaulted and robbed in Brownsville at 3:40 PM. A pair of robbers held up a bodega in Maspeth, sticking their guns in the face of a 9 year old girl and her grandfather.
•  A gay man was bashed with a pipe and a rock from a bigot in the Bronx. A homeless man assaulted a woman in Murray Hill in a purse snatching attempt.
•  A gang of thugs is responsible for muggings and attacks  in a concentrated area of Queens in Corona and Elmhurst. They are still at large.
• A 71 year old woman was attacked by a mother at a 2nd avenue station in Manhattan for suggesting teach her child some manners after the two barged into an elevator as people were exiting. A 40 year old man kicked a pregnant woman on the 4 line.

All these run the gamut of rampant criminal activity, which can easily be overlooked from the high towers constructed in the past decade from hyper development and the influx of billions of tourists tramping on every crevice and crack of the city like it’s some fucking six flags theme park or universal studio exhibit.

There are crime trends that is seemingly not being addressed. Especially on attacks and robberies on the elderly and rapes attempted and committed on women. The dramatic rise of splinter gangs. There are also a lot of home invasions. And a lot of these crimes are happening in daylight. Also in consideration, is the dramatic rise in child abuse, which has been enabled by criminal incompetence and neglect by the ACS. Two high profile cases, Zymere Perkins and Jaden Jordan, just got upgraded to murder.

What is more disturbing is that the omniscient presence of surveillance cameras is not even deterring these acts of senseless and random violence and robberies. As a lot of these crimes take place in full view of them Take for instance this incident in the Bronx, in similarity to the L.E.S. beat down above, where a food delivery guy was beaten, stripped and robbed in an apartment building by 2 lowlifes, a man and a woman, as a bunch of jackasses hanging in lobby just watch. That couple actually went inside the building after the attack as if they lived there.

It would be easy to dismiss this as hyperbole, but add the scandal that is the homeless census of 60,000 plus, the massive discrepancy of wealth, the horrendously ignored situation of a majority of rent-burdened citizens and these are not the best of times despite how comparably safer it is than it was 24 or even 34 years ago when crack was on the streets. Although it should be mentioned that heroin is back in a big way, similar to the rocks sold back then in that it’s cheaper and diluted.

This is going to get worse if those in city hall, the higher echelons of the NYPD, and all these demented city planners with lysergic visions to turn the boroughs into an interconnected social networking wonderland ever acknowledge the problems of the people that make this city truly run and hold steady in the first place. And cease bringing up the bad old days already, it’s bad enough you people actually put up a photo exhibition for a few hours in the Brooklyn Museum, only to dismantle it when the Blaz’s press gaggle was done and throw it down the memory hole.

This digital publication will make sure of that. Hence the post title. Let’s be careful out there. And be aware of your surroundings. Because our elected oblivious overpaid officials surely won’t.