Going through a wave of random road and subway violence, a deepening migrant disaster and the deadly capturing final month of an officer throughout a routine visitors cease, New York Metropolis Police Commissioner Edward Caban insists the nation’s largest metropolis stays protected.
“It is the notion versus actuality,” Caban mentioned Monday in a wide-ranging interview as he marks practically 9 months main the 33,000-member New York Police Division.
“You realize, we may inform folks on a regular basis that I will present extra numbers. Sure, we’re on target for crime,” Caban added. “However to somebody’s actuality, somebody who has been a sufferer of a criminal offense, it tells a distinct story. And that is one of many issues we’re scuffling with proper now.”
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The newest knowledge compiled by the police division signifies that crime was down general within the first quarter of 2024 and that it dropped final month from the yr earlier than: Murders had been down 19%, burglaries fell 17%, and grand larcenies dipped 7%.
Taking pictures incidents had been down virtually 26% in March from the yr earlier than, amounting to 29 fewer capturing victims and extra arrests for unlawful possession of a firearm, police mentioned.
However some sorts of crime elevated final month over March 2023, together with rape, with 16 extra incidents reported this yr, bringing the full to 148, in addition to felony assaults, which elevated by 118, to 2,278.
The police division additionally reported much less general crime throughout the transit system, saying the initiative of deploying 800 officers — often known as “Operation Fare Play” — helped with imposing fare evasion. Additionally final month, Gov. Kathy Hochul directed Nationwide Guard members into the town’s sprawling underground community, with bag checks being carried out in a number of the busiest subway stations.
A sequence of well-publicized assaults, together with the slashing of a subway conductor in Brooklyn and the kicking of a 64-year-old rider onto the tracks at busy Penn Station in Manhattan, prompted the transfer.
“Let me be very, very clear,” Hochul mentioned at a information convention. “These brazen, heinous assaults on our subway system won’t be tolerated.”
Mayor Eric Adams has additionally mentioned the subway system, which carries 4 million paid riders day by day, is protected however affected by a adverse notion.
“Public security is the precise security, and it is how persons are feeling,” Adams mentioned final month. “Stats do not matter if folks do not imagine they’re in a protected surroundings.”
Caban mentioned the inflow of migrants into New York, coupled with intense protection when a criminal offense is dedicated by somebody who isn’t legally speculated to be within the nation, can stoke fears. In January, reported migrants who had been recorded on video assaulting two law enforcement officials in Instances Sq. led to calls for his or her deportation as Hochul and different leaders criticized how they had been arraigned and launched on their very own recognizance.
“I am not happy with that in any respect,” she mentioned on the time. “These are legislation enforcement officers who ought to by no means, beneath any circumstances, be subjected to bodily assault. It is mistaken on all accounts, and I am trying to judges and prosecutors to do the fitting factor.”
The difficulty has turn into fiercely political throughout this election season and a spotlight of presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump’s presidential marketing campaign, through which he has sought to attach migrants with a surge in legal exercise. Skilled evaluation and out there knowledge from major-city police departments present that regardless of a number of high-profile incidents, there’s no proof of a migrant-driven crime wave.
“The NYPD understands that individuals come to New York Metropolis to construct a greater life for themselves and the households,” Caban mentioned, including that a lot of his police drive’s rank-and-file members had been born in different nations.
“They, themselves, are the American dream. However having mentioned that, when you commit a criminal offense in New York Metropolis, when you break the legislation, we are going to maintain you accountable,” he mentioned. “Proper now, we do have some pockets of migrant crime.”
Caban, a 30-year veteran officer, mentioned he’s anxious in regards to the bigger impact of defendants’ being caught after which launched after having benefited from state bail reform legal guidelines.
He mentioned he blames an underlying drawback for inflating nervousness in New York and never migrants as a complete.
“We discuss, no matter you wish to name it, ‘catch and launch.’ We lock somebody up. District legal professional places bail on them. The judges allow them to go to stroll our streets once more,” he mentioned, including, “It is a damaged system.”
“We lock folks up time and again. We’re seeing the identical folks,” Caban mentioned. “You realize, when is sufficient going to be sufficient? You realize, cops are doing an incredible job with all these arrests — a 26-year excessive. And for what?”
Caban, a Bronx native of Puerto Rican heritage who grew to become the primary Latino to guide the New York Police Division final summer time, mentioned he stays pleased with his police drive and its variety. However the loss of life of Officer Jonathan Diller, who was killed final month by an armed particular person throughout a visitors cease in Queens, grew to become a grim reminder of what can occur to any of them right away.
“Whether or not it is a household of blood or a household of blue, it hurts to the core,” he mentioned.
Nonetheless, Caban insisted the state of affairs isn’t consultant of the risks that individuals in New York face frequently.
“We now have one dangerous incident, it is magnified throughout social media, and it units us all again,” Caban mentioned. “Everyone thinks there’s lawlessness in our metropolis, and it is not. We are the most secure massive metropolis in America.”
