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Overall Crime and Shootings Fall to Record Lows, NYPD Says

 Police Commissioner James O'Neill speaks to the press Wednesday at the Brooklyn Museum.
Police Commissioner James O'Neill speaks to the press Wednesday at the Brooklyn Museum.
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DNAinfo/Alexandra Leon

PROSPECT HEIGHTS — Overall crime and shootings fell to an all-time low across the city in 2016, according to the NYPD.

Last year, overall crime dropped by 4 percent — from 105,921 crimes reported in 2015 to 101,606 in 2016, police said. Shootings dropped by 12 percent — from 1,138 in 2015 to 998 last year.

This marks the first time fewer than 1,000 shootings have been recorded since crime statistics started being recorded in 1993.

Mayor Bill de Blasio joined NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill at the Brooklyn Museum Wednesday to announce the historic drops. 

Officials credited the NYPD’s “precision policing” approach — which has officers zero in on more serious offenders like gang members instead of those committing minor crimes — as well as the department’s new neighborhood policing model.

“Now the NYPD is perfecting the strategy of precision policing and, in combination with neighborhood policing, crimes are being stopped before they happen,” de Blasio said.

While overall arrests have decreased by 20 percent since the NYPD moved away from stop-and-frisk three years ago, gun-related arrests increased by 10 percent in 2016, according to NYPD Deputy Commissioner Dermot Shea. 

The NYPD executed 41 gang takedowns in 2016 and gang-related shootings were down by 44 percent this year over 2015, Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said. 

Drug-related murders and shootings were also down this year to 11 and 21, respectively, Boyce added.

The number of murders, rapes and robberies also fell in 2016.

Murders dropped by 4 percent, from 352 in 2015 to 335 in 2016, while rapes dropped by 1 percent, from 1450 in 2015 to 1,436 in 2016, officials said. Robberies dropped by nearly 9 percent, from 16, 971 in 2015 to 15,489 in 2016.

The only crime that saw an increase in 2016 was felony assault, which jumped by 2 percent, from 20,375 in 2015 to 20,807 in 2016, according to the NYPD.

Every borough saw an decrease in crime in 2016, according to Shea. 

“There is a momentum building in New York City with the various crime strategies that we’ve put together over the last several years,” Shea said. “Things are going very well with the crime picture in New York City.”