70th Precinct Shows Drop In Homicides & Shootings Relative To 2015

Reported crimes in the 70th Precinct are down, with few exceptions, relative to the same point last year.

Captain James Palumbo, commanding officer of the 70th Precinct, discussed the statistics at last night’s 70th Precinct Community Council meeting. Most striking are the precinct’s drops in homicides and shootings so far this year.

The 70th Precinct’s first murder of 2016, the stabbing of a young woman in a Clarkson Avenue building that had served as a privately run homeless shelter, happened less than two weeks ago. Last year, there were three murders by mid-May in the 70th Precinct.

The suspect in the Clarkson Avenue stabbing was arrested within hours of the victim’s murder, Captain Palumbo said.

Captain Palumbo also noted that the precinct’s first traffic fatality of 2016 — someone struck by a drug-impaired driver — took place on May 9th.

Most crime categories — murder, robbery, felonious assault, burglary, auto grand larceny, mass transit, petit larceny, and misdemeanor assault — have shown a drop relative to the same point last year. (See NYPD table below.)

The number of shooting incidents dropped from 8 by mid-May last year to 3 in 2016; and, incredibly, the number of shooting victims dropped from 15 to 3.

One major exception to this very positive trend is sex crimes. The number of reported rapes in the 70th Precinct this year is 11, as opposed to 7 at the same point last year. Misdemeanor sexual assaults jumped from 12 to 18.

Grand larceny has also increased by almost 20 percent — from 201 incidents as of mid-May, 2015, to 240 this year.

Captain Palumbo discussed breaks in protracted cases, such as the arrest of a man linked to several thefts from the front porches of area homes; and the arrest, with the help of the Borough Park Shomrim, of some local identity thieves who were intercepting credit cards sent through the mail.

Residents also raised their concerns with Palumbo — such as a woman living in a building where pot was smoked openly in the hallways, and residents who asked about abandoned cars and possible illegal trash dumping into area dumpsters.

For a longer view on crime in the 70th Precinct, take a look at historical data provided by the NYPD.

Most major crime categories in our area have dropped precipitously, and steadily, since 1990. The one exception to this is murder, which showed a major drop between 1990 and 1998, and then climbed back to levels seen in the late 1990s.

The 70th Precinct reported 17 murders in 2015. So far this year, we have reported one.