Crime in New York has fallen 13 percent this year – including drops in the murder rate and every major felony, Mayor Giuliani announced yesterday.
“Something . . . is going on this year that I don’t think anyone else thought was possible at this level, including me,” Giuliani said. “And that is the very substantial continued reduction in crime.”
City homicides, which numbered 473 in the period of January-August 2000, fell to 414 in the same period this year, a drop of 12.4 percent. Murder had been on the rise in New York the previous two years.
Rapes and grand larceny had the smallest drop, while car thefts plummeted almost 20 percent.
The percentages mirror declines the NYPD announced in late June.
Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said the department also has forced down alarmingly high police response times – from an average 11.8 minutes in August 2000 to 7.3 minutes this August – by using the accountability meetings known as Compstat to pinpoint the troubled commands.
Kerik said the NYPD has been targeting several specific areas to drive crime down:
* Using cops paid by Operation Condor, which beefs up the force with overtime money, to visit homes of domestic-violence victims.
* Forming an elite “100 Most Wanted” team to go after gunmen on the loose. Since Aug. 14, the team has found 29 of the top 100 violent felons with outstanding warrants, including 12 who were already in jail.
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THE CRIME DROP
* Homicide / down 12.4 percent
* Rape / down 5.1 percent
* Robbery / down 17.2 percent
* Felony assault / down 10.6 percent
* Burglary / down 17.9 percent
* Grand larceny / down 5 percent
* Auto theft / down 19.7 percent
* Overall / down 13.4 percent
(Figures compare crime during January 2000 to August 2000 with the period of January 2001 to August 2001)