Article Pub: O’Neill says dramatic drop in NYC crime not seen since 1950’s

Friday, 1 December 2017

O’Neill says dramatic drop in NYC crime not seen since 1950’s

When the ball falls in Times Square in four weeks, the NYPD will be celebrating a reduction in crime not seen in the city in nearly 70 years, Police Commissioner James O’Neill said Friday.

“It is safe to say right now that New York hasn’t been like this since the 1950s,” O’Neill said on “Good Day New York.”

As November came to a close, the city had marked a 17% drop in homicides, police said. By Thursday night, 259 killings had been reported this year compared to 312 during the same time period last year.

Shootings are also down for the year — by about 23%, cops said. Police had logged 722 shootings by Thursday night, 211 fewer than a year before, officials said.

“Last year in 2016, we had 335 homicides, 998 shootings and index crimes were down by 4%,” O’Neill said. “You have to compare that to the 1990s when we had 2200 homicides, 5,000 shootings and 6,000 index crimes. In 2017 — we’re in December now — we’re down over 50 homicides, we’re down over 200 shootings and we’re down 5% in major crimes.”

O’Neill credited the drop in crime to the department’s neighborhood policing initiative, where cops are given specific sectors and are instructed to reach out to residents in the area.

“We give our cops time to interact and build relationships with the community,” O’Neill said. “This is something that law enforcement can’t do by themselves. Together, these crimes can go as low as we want them to go.”

Besides reducing crime, O’Neill said the department is always keeping an eye on possible terror targets.

“We’ve done Thanksgiving [parade], the tree lighting and now we have the big one coming up, New Year’s Eve at Times Square,” he said, adding that visitors will see heavily armed police officers protecting revelers. “We are a very safe city, but we have to make people feel safe too.”

O’Neill said the NYPD can prevent an attack by a lone-wolf terrorist, but city residents need to pitch in.

“We can’t (put concrete bollards) everywhere in the city,” he said. “This is such a vibrant city, there’s eight and a half million people. Go to Midtown, go downtown, go to 34th St., there is just hundreds of thousands of people in the city.”

“To get through this we all have to work together and pay attention to what is going on,” he added.