Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill: Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us for the monthly snapshot of our citywide crime reduction efforts. In a moment, of course, you’ll hear from Mayor de Blasio, and then our Crime Control Strategies Chief Lori Pollock to go over the January crime numbers. And it's no coincidence that we're meeting here today at the Van Dyke community center in the confines of the 73rd Precinct. I’d like to thank Cassandra Johnson – she's the Senior Director for Hospitality – and also Dean Castro from Medgar Evers College.
Brownsville pushed crime down by more than 3 percent in January this year compared to January 2018. Like the rest of New York City, this neighborhood has seen overall reductions in violence and disorder over the past five, 10, 25 years. But this community is also one that I highlighted recently when I spoke of our six commands that at the end of 2018 had violent crime rates more than twice as high as the rest of the City. You'll recall that the other precincts are the 7-5, also in Brooklyn; the 4-0, the 4-1, the 4-2 in the Bronx; and the 2-5 in East Harlem. The violent crime rate is the combination of murders, rapes, robberies and felony assaults, adjusted for population in each precinct. So, while these six precincts don't necessarily have the highest gross numbers for individual crimes, they do have the highest rates relative to their populations. And when I speak about these six, I'm talking about our moral obligation to face this challenge head on until every street in every New York City neighborhood is as safe as our safest streets already are today.
So tomorrow here in the Van Dyke Community Center, we are holding the first of a series of meetings [inaudible] these six precincts. A wide-range of community representatives are invited – a true cross section of Brownsville. We're going to talk about the problems, the concerns and the challenges that are unique to this neighborhood. This is the next iteration of neighborhood policing – listening and taking action together is how we build trust and strengthen relationships. And that's how the NYPD can secure the all-important buy-in from the people we serve and how we can all share the responsibility for our public safety. These meetings will empower us to find new solutions to tough problems, and we’re going to do that together. And we'll know these efforts are successful when participation from all sectors of government and community is commonplace, when crime and disorder continues to fall, and when quality of life on every block in every neighborhood is improved and, most importantly, sustained. So these first six precincts are a departure point for us, beginning here tomorrow.
And we're only starting here, we won't be stopping here. Every neighborhood deserves to enjoy the same level of safety and wellbeing as the rest of the City. That's our pledge – to ensure that all neighborhoods are safe regardless of whether people we serve call home.
Mayor Bill de Blasio: Thank you very much, Commissioner. And Commissioner, I want to commend you and the men and women in the NYPD for some very important progress that you've made in the month of January 2019, and for the progress you've made over the last years.
What I'm hearing from you is something I want to commend, which is that the NYPD is going on the offensive in areas that still need more help. There is no resting on laurels here. Even though there's been extraordinary reductions in crime across the City, there are neighborhoods that need more focus, need more help, and they will get that focus, they will get that help. We will not rest until we bring down crime even further.
So, you know, there could be the idea that when you get to the point of being the safest big city in America, you know, say that you've touched bottom, you've gone as far as you can go. That is not our approach. We are going to go a lot farther and it will be in large measure because we drill down on the areas that need help the most. Brownsville is a community that was historically neglected by government, that did not get its fair share. We've been trying to right that wrong on many fronts in terms of affordable housing, in terms of education, but we're also doing it when it comes to policing, doubling down our commitment to making this a safer community. So Commissioner, thank you for your commitment to this part of our city and to the other precincts that you will be focusing on as well. I think this is a very important, very helpful initiative.
I want to thank, of course, First Deputy Commissioner Tucker, Chief of Department Monahan – all the leadership of the NYPD. And I very much want to thank our host here today, the Van Dyke Cornerstone Community Center. This is a really important piece of the equation as well, both for making this a better community overall, for ensuring that our young people are nurtured and supported and can reach their potential. But we also know – we’ve known it for decades – in fact, police leaders have been saying this for decades in the city, in this country, that when you give young people constructive options, it contributes greatly to public safety. So, thank you to everyone who is part of Van Dyke for the great work that you do.
NYPD has proven, I think, beyond a shadow of a doubt that the way forward is neighborhood policing, the way forward is to ensure that people in every community feel they are being treated fairly, that he way to greater public safety is through fairness. Safety and fairness walk hand in hand. This has been proven, I think, once and for all over this last half-decade in New York City and we're going to deepen that strategy with this new initiative. Precision policing has worked and this is going to be an example of taking that even further. Neighborhood policing has clearly worked. And again, this will enhance the neighborhood policing approach.
I want to note that the evidence is clear. The numbers get more and more striking with every passing month. We got rid of a broken and unconstitutional approach to stop and frisk – it’s down 94 percent since 2013, and we've seen consistent reductions in crime. We've been using much less arrest, and this is something that a Commissioner Bratton said when I was first working with him in this job, that arrest is one tool, it’s not a goal unto itself. Arrests are now down nearly 40 percent since 2013 with crime going down consistently – approximately 150,000 fewer arrests in 2018 than in 2013, and it's had a very positive impact, using a new strategy that has helped to bring police and community closer together.
Chief Pollock will go into the details in just a second about January, but the most important thing to know is – overall crime down 7.4 percent this January 2019, versus January just a year ago. So continued progress by the NYPD, working with our neighborhood partners. And the approach, the focus on data, the focus on precision policing, CompStat, all of these strong realities, all the things that have worked for years and years focus us on these six precincts that the Commissioner spoke about – six out of the 77 in the City – six where we see violent crimes still at levels that are unacceptable and that we must address once and for all. The 7-3 is one example of that and we are confident that we can make a big impact here.
So, I want to thank the Commissioner, thank all the leadership of the NYPD for this focus on these six precincts. The Commissioner and I will be visiting these precincts throughout the year to see the progress and to make sure everyone is focused on achieving these goals. And we're going to ensure that this is part of a strategy to make the safest big city in America even safer.
I want to say one last point before I say a few words in Spanish, the folks who live in these precincts are hardworking New Yorkers. They are folks who every day make this city work. They need to know that their neighborhoods will be safe. They need to know their families will be safe. So, to everyone who lives in the 25th, the 40th, the 41st, the 42nd, and the 7-3 and 7-5 precincts – to everyone in those communities, know that NYPD is doubling down, putting more focus, more resources into making you safe.
Chief of Crime Control Strategies Lori Pollock, NYPD: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good morning, everyone. Overall, like the mayor said, we have seen a 7.4 percent reduction in overall crime – that’s a decrease of over 500 crimes and a record-low for January. We have also seen a reduction of seven shootings this month, making this a record-low January, with 52 shootings. The low is driven by a 40 percent reduction in shootings in the Bronx – 16 versus 26. We do show an increase in Brooklyn North –14 verses eight; Manhattan North – seven verses five; and Queens North and Staten Island both are up one. These shootings are 31 percent gang-related, which is usually between 30 and 40 percent. We have set new milestones with record-low robberies of any January, down almost 20 percent, and a record-low of 888 burglaries. Only the third time in CompStat history that we have come in below 900 burglaries.
It isn't all good news, however. January saw an increase in murder by five – 27 versus 22. The Bronx did see a decrease in murders – five versus eight. Five of our patrol boroughs saw increases. Notably, a third of this month’s murders were in Brooklyn North – nine versus three; Manhattan North – four versus zero; Brooklyn South – three versus one, with the hammer attack during which three people tragically died. Housing murders are up – eight verses five, and 22 percent, or six of the murders were gang related. Domestic murders were down four versus seven, with no domestic shooting murders. And we continue to remove guns from households where there are reports of domestic violence. We have removed six guns so far this year. January saw 27 percent increase in rapes – 115 compared to 118 last year. So 54 percent of those reports happen in January 2019. 40 percent of the 150 rapes are domestic violence-related and 50 percent of those have arrests.
We have improved facilities and new training. In addition, I would like to highlight that starting this week for the time since the inception of CompStat, we are starting CompStat meetings solely dedicated to the Special Victims Division. These will be closed meetings where we will have supervisors work through their cases and share best practices. Chief Harrison and I have done an assessment of the data we collect regarding these crimes, and there are areas of improvements. The improvements to Special Victims under Chief Shea is to bring Special Victims up to speed with the rest of the Department's data analytics. The confidential nature investigations oftentimes have impeded our ability to do more real-time analysis, and we are fixing that. I will continue the message to all survivors. Please come forward and give us a chance to investigate these crimes no matter when they occurred.
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