NYC Major Crime Up 36.5% as Adams Tries to Curb Shooting Spike

(Bloomberg) -- Major crime in New York City rose by 36.5% in March from a year ago despite Mayor Eric Adams's efforts to reduce a spike of incidents that have persisted since the pandemic began.

Citywide shooting incidents increased by 16.2%, the New York Police Department said on Wednesday during a press briefing. The number of homicides fell 15.8% from a year ago, robberies rose by 48.4% and burglaries jumped by 40%, the NYPD said.

“We are facing a perception among criminals that there are no consequences even among serious crime,” said NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell, who took over as police chief earlier this year.

Adams, who staked his campaign for mayor on public safety, has focused the first few months of his mayoralty on fighting the rising crime levels in the city. He revived a controversial anti-crime unit last month, which he renamed “neighborhood safety teams,” vowing not to replicate the abuse and racial discrimination that plagued previous iterations of the plainclothes police unit.

Sewell said it will take more than a few weeks to reverse years-long crime trends and that an overwhelming number of crimes are due to recidivism, as courts still haven't caught up with a backlog of cases during the pandemic.

“Individuals that continue to get arrested multiple times continue to commit these crimes,” Michael Lipetri, chief of crime control strategies, said during the briefing.

He said the police force has seen a spike in daytime shootings, which now account for a quarter of shootings. This year, about 40% of shootings are motivated by gang violence and 12% of victims were under the age of 18. Half of the shootings in March are concentrated in 10 neighborhoods in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens.

NYPD officials said that officers made 28.2% more arrests in the seven major crime categories tracked by the police department and that officers made 1,207 gun arrests in the first quarter of 2022, the highest number of arrests for illegal firearms since early 2021.

As of April 4, the anti-crime unit Adams restarted is now fully operational in 30 precincts where 80% of the city's shooting incidents occurred last year. Three weeks in, the group of officers made 135 arrests, 25 of which were gun arrests, officials said on Wednesday. Among the people arrested, 68% have prior arrest records. They said among arrests for carrying illegal guns, 16% were juveniles and 20% have open and pending felony cases.

“I made the promise to New Yorkers on the campaign trail that we would put in place a specialized unit that would focus on gun crimes,” Adams said last month. “I also made the promise we would not repeat the mistakes of the past.”