NYC shootings and murders down: Mayor Adams

After months of emphasizing the need to address public safety, Mayor Adams appeared to make a slight but significant rhetorical shift Wednesday when he leaned on a refrain commonly used by his predecessor, Mayor Bill de Blasio.

“New York remains — and people sometimes forget this, but I really want to highlight this — New York remains the safest big city in America,” Adams said at City Hall. “We have to be clear on that.”

Adams’ use of the phrase, “the safest big city in America” comes at the end of his first year — and as he claimed victories when it comes to curbing violent crime. The tide is beginning to turn, with shootings dropping 17% and murders dipping 12% over the course of 2022, according to the mayor and NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell.

“We’re seeing a 27-year high for gun arrests,” Adams also noted. “Our cops are working. Detectives are clearing homicide cases at a near historic level, and our clearance rate for the seven major felony categories is the highest in 20 years.”

At the beginning of the year, Adams rolled out a reconstituted version of what was once known as the anti-crime unit, a division of the NYPD that was disbanded under de Blasio after taking heat for heavy-handed tactics. Adams dubbed the new team, which is focused on gun arrests, the neighborhood safety unit.

“I’m not going to take away one of the most important aspects of public safety, which is the unpredictable nature of an unmarked car,” Adams told the Daily News Editorial Board Wednesday. “What that unmarked car did, it changed the dynamics of people believing that they only have to look out for the blue-and-white car, and it brought back the unpredictable nature of who is out there.”

Sewell said the NYPD could “not quantify” the crimes prevented by the relatively new anti-gun unit, but noted that the team’s 200 members have taken about 500 guns off the street over the past year. That’s out of approximately 7,000 gun seizures.

“They’ve made probably about 1,800 arrests,” she said. “Their contribution is significant. We’re looking forward to continuing that program.”