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Crime Drops in June as This Summer Starts Out as One of NYC's Safest

By Murray Weiss | July 1, 2015 10:21am
 Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and Mayor Bill de Blasio stood side by side at a press conference.
Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and Mayor Bill de Blasio stood side by side at a press conference.
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DNAinfo/Ben Fractenberg

NEW YORK CITY — The month of June has been one of the safest summer starts in Big Apple history, DNAinfo New York has learned.

All seven major crime categories — led by a 34.4 percent drop in murders — recorded declines during the four weeks of the month, starting Mon., June 1, and ending Sun., June 28. That's compared to the same period last year, which already was one of the safest Junes in more than four decades, NYPD statistics show.

Crime figures for the 29th and the 30th have not yet been released by the NYPD.

In addition to the plunge in murders from 32 last year to 21, rapes fell 12 percent from 125 to 110, assaults dipped 13.4 percent; and burglaries and grand larcenies both declined by nearly double digits. Robberies and car theft also fell slightly.

Overall, there were 7,836 serious crimes recorded for the first four weeks of June 2015, compared to 8,578 for the comparable period in 2014, an overall decline of 8.7 percent for the period.

"We've been focusing on the violence, and then even we were shocked at how great June has been," a high ranking law-enforcement official said. "We think the year will be won in terms of crime. But the question is the violence."

The closely-watched shooting numbers have also dipped 3.7 percent for the 28 day period, from 108 last year to 104.

That comes on the heels of overall citywide shooting numbers that had jumped 10 percent in the first half of 2015, between Jan 1 and June 14, according to NYPD data. There were 607 people shot between Jan. 1 and June 21 of this year, up 6.9 percent from the same period in 2014.

Concerns were raised earlier this month with the return of warm weather that overall crime was on the rise, which they blamed on the precipitous drop in stop-and-frisks after de Blasio's election.

SEE NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME DATA THROUGH JUNE 21. STORY CONTINUES BELOW MAP.

As a result, the NYPD launched its “All Out” initiative a month earlier to keep more cops on patrol on overtime and deploy other officers from behind desks into city neighborhoods.

And in recent weeks, Mayor Bill de Blasio reversed his position not to add to the size of the NYPD by announcing he will hire nearly 1,300 more officers to help fight crime, 300 more than Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and the City Council had requested.

While the NYPD has not yet released their crime figures for June 29 and 30, police officials told “On The Inside” that they believe those two days were relatively safe ones that will likely help narrow crime stats between this year and 2014 even more.

For example, the total number of homicides citywide for the year through June 28 was 161, compared to 145 last year, a difference of 16 murders and an 11 percent increase.

One police official familiar with the statistics said that when the NYPD counted Monday and Tuesday’s murder figures, the gap narrowed to 13 murders — 163 compared to 150 — and only a 9 percent spread.

A similar outcome emerged calculating shooting incidents citywide through Tuesday June 30 with 546 shootings recorded in the Big Apple, compared to 523 for the first six months of last year.

That’s a difference of 23 shooting incidents, and a 4 percent difference overall. Earlier this year, the gap had been averaging about 7 percent above 2014.

Considering that the NYPD is coming off one of its best crime fighting years, police officials are optimistic that, barring unforeseen events, 2015 will be another safe year in New York.

In fact, serious crime overal in New York remains down 6.6 percent this year, compared to 2014, according to NYPD statistics.