Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Dermot Shea came to the Police Academy (in Queens) to see the class of 530 recruits that will be hitting the streets of New York City, and to hold a press conference on the 2019 year end crime stats.
Commissioner Shea spoke to the graduating class, telling them of the fine work of the NYPD. He said they will be doing a job not only of protecting the people of New York City, but they will be the newest ambassadors from the NYPD. Earlier one recruit told me that she is assigned to the 50th precinct, and also lives in the Bronx when most police officers live outside of the city. Several other recruits are anxious to do a good job, and that was when our conversation ended as the ceremony began.
Commissioner Shea at the press conference spoke about the overall drop in crime to its lowest levels, but also noted certain increases over the 2018 stats. When comparing the 2019 numbers to the 2018 there were 23 more murders, 45 less rapes, 398 more robberies, 294 more felony assaults, 1,025 less Burglaries, 534 less Grand Larcenies, 18 more cars stolen, for a sum of 872 less total crimes of these seven categories.
Commissioner Shea noted that there was an increase in Hate Crime by Motivation in 2019 of seventy-two over 2018 covering twelve different categories of the crime. Commissioner Shea also commented there is an increase in youth related robberies, especially in Manhattan. That teenage robberies are up forty-three percent, and since June an increase of two-hundred-fifty victims going or coming from school that were age fourteen and fifteen citywide. To counter this Commissioner Shea wants to engage youths before they may commit a crime. He finished up by saying along with the mayor that the city is on heightened alert because of what recently happened in the Middle East, but the NYPD will keep New Yorkers safe as they always have, and then took questions.
Questions included what type of hate crimes were committed, and if that category would be added to the Comp Stat report. domestic violence, shootings, crew related crime (gang violence), the no bail reform, Governor Cuomo, President Trump, and the current situation in the Middle East to name only a few topics.
I was able to ask three questions, two of the police commissioner and one of the mayor. Question one to the commissioner was, how much crime goes unreported. Commissioner Shea replied “I’ll tell you many. I mean I don’t know how anyone would give you an an accurate number, but much”. Question two was of what will be done to protect cyclists in 2020.
Commissioner Shea turned that over to Chief of Transportation Laprtri, who said in 2019 twenty-eight bicyclists were killed up from ten in 2018. Dangerous drivers will be targeted, Traffic Enforcement will ticket cars parked in bike lanes, more truck safety, looking at towing of cars in bike lanes, looking at speeding drivers and truckers, and working with precincts to identify problematic locations.
My question of the mayor.was that in 2016 you told me it would take eighteen billion dollars to bring NYCHA up to par, last year you said it would take thirty-eight billion dollars (the mayor corrected me saying it was thirty-two ), have you spoken to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who wants to bring over fifty billion federal dollars to fix NYCHA with her New Green Deal? Mayor de Blasio replied that he had not spoken to the congresswoman, he didn’t know the specific details of the plan, there had been a big hole in NYCHA due to the forty years of systematic disinvestment in public housing, federal funds were at the core of public housing, and he would welcome other funding for NYCHA, yeah.
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