NYC sees small dip in crime in June despite surge in car thefts
The Big Apple saw a dip in overall crime last month — which NYPD brass touted as “progress” — though July has gotten off to a bloody start.
New NYPD crime statistics show that major crimes dropped by 4% in the five boroughs last month compared to June 2022 — despite a 23% leap in citywide car thefts and with felony assaults for the month on par with June last year.
Car thefts, classified as grand larceny auto, were up this past June compared to last — 1,391 incidents versus 1,133.
Major — or index — crimes include murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny and grand larceny auto.
Transit crimes have jumped by more than 18% last month over 2022, with 195 incidents compared to just 165 over the course of June last year, the data shows.
Nonetheless, rape reports were down from 141 last year to 107 this year, a 24% decrease, and burglaries fell from 1,311 in June 2022 to 986 last month, a nearly 25% dip.
“As we look back on the month of June and the first half of the year, we can see already progress in the NYPD’s fight against violence and disorder as well head into the summer months,” Acting NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban said.
“We are confident that our work will continue to make a positive impact on this city and improve the lives of all the people we serve,” Caban said.
NYPD Chief Michael Lipetri, meanwhile, said the outbreak of gun violence in the city over the weekend and beyond the July 4th holiday would have been even worse if cops hadn’t been deployed en masse.
Since the start of July, the Bronx has been particularly plagued by gunplay. In response, the NYPD initiated a rare level-four mobilization in the borough, a heightened state of deployment, at 10 p.m. Tuesday, sending hundreds of cops flooding into the northernmost borough.
The department last put the measure in place during the Black Lives Matter unrest in 2020 over the police-custody death of George Floyd. Similar high-level mobilizations were ordered following the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on Lower Manhattan and during the 1992 riots in Washington Heights.
Despite deploying up to 600 cops Tuesday, a burst of gun violence broke out in the overnight hours, with five shootings in under two hours in the Bronx alone.
Between 12:40 a.m. and 2:20 am., three gunshot victims walked into Bronx hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries, and an 18-year-old boy was shot dead while his pal was wounded, police said.
Moises Figueroa, 18, was pronounced dead at St. Barnabas Hospital after being shot in the leg.
The post-holiday shootings followed a bloody holiday weekend with the victims including a 5-year-old girl who was critically wounded by a stray bullet Friday and a 12-year-old girl who shot while walking with her aunt in the Mount Hope section of the Bronx on Saturday night.
But the June crime figures reflect a continuing year-to-date dip in the stats over last year.
Shootings are down the sharpest over last year through Sunday, with 652 incidents and 781 victims in 2022 compared to 487 shootings and 573 victims this year, a drop of 25.3% and 26.6%, respectively.
Major crimes are down slightly across the board compared to last year, with a 10.3% decline in rapes, with 734 this year versus 818 over the same span in 2022. Murders also decreased 9.5% from 221 last year to 200 this year, the data shows.
Burglaries also dipped from 7,712 last year to 6,926 this year.
