Is NYC Safe? Violence, Perception and a Complicated Reality

By: Michael R. Sisak & Michelle L. Price

A teenage fast-food cashier shot to death in Manhattan. A woman pushed to her death in front of a subway train in Times Square. An 11-month-old girl wounded by a stray bullet in the Bronx. Two police officers killed in Harlem.

A string of headline-making violence in New York City has frayed nerves and become a rolling trauma for Mayor Eric Adams’ nascent administration.

But while January brought tragedy to the city, statistics suggest it is still about as safe or safer than it was a decade ago, when former Mayor Michael Bloomberg touted it as the “safest big city in America.”

New York City saw 28 killings in January, one fewer than the number it averaged for that month over the prior 10 years.

Last year, as violence spiked nationwide, the total was 488 — up from a record low of 292 in 2017 but a far cry from the early 1990s, when the city averaged over 2,000 killings a year. In 2011, the city had 515.

“In New York, it’s sort of this dual situation,” crime analyst Jeff Asher said. “It’s important to know that this is not the worst it has ever been, while also understanding that it has gotten significantly worse in the last few years.”

The number of people wounded by gunfire surged in New York City during the pandemic and remains stubbornly high.

But its homicide rate (5.5 killings per 100,000 people last year) has remained lower than that in the next six most populous cities, FBI and police crime data show, and lower also than many smaller cities like Jacksonville, Florida; Fort Worth, Texas; and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Adams, a former police captain who campaigned on a tough-on-crime message, says he is not only battling actual crime, but also a fear and perception of crime spiraling out of control.

Research shows that people tend to be bad at understanding crime trends and generally assume the worst, Asher said.

Adams says he wants to blanket the city with police officers to reassure New Yorkers and visitors alike. He also given outsize attention to his old department in his first month on the job, making it a point to visit roll call, standing with officers after recent violence and taking the lead on directing new crimefighting strategies.

“Being safe is also feeling safe. No one wants to hear stats when they don’t feel safe,” Adams told TV station NY1 last week.

In New York, 2022 began with a string of the type of arbitrary crimes that unsettle people most.

Kristal Bayron-Nieves, the 19-year-old cashier killed Jan. 9 in a late-night robbery at a Burger King in East Harlem, moved with her family to New York in search of a better life after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in 2017.

Michelle Go, the 40-year-old woman shoved to the tracks Jan. 15 at the Times Square subway station, worked for the global consulting firm Deloitte and volunteered with the Junior League to help at-risk and homeless families.

The 11-month-old was hospitalized in critical condition after she was hit in the cheek by a stray bullet while sitting in a parked car with her mother on Jan. 19, just days before her first birthday.

The slain officers, Jason Rivera, 22, and Wilbert Mora, 27, had joined the NYPD with hopes of bridging longstanding divides between police and immigrant communities, like the ones they grew up in.

(AP)