.
3/2/15, "Murders up 20% in 2015 in year-to-year comparison, NYPD says," NY Daily News, by Rocco Parascandola , Tina Moore , Bill Hutchinson
"The murder rate in New York City has spiked an alarming 20% in the
first two months of the year, prompting NYPD brass to rethink strategy
to curb the deadly trend.
Since Jan. 1, 54 murders have been recorded in the city, up nine from
the same period a year ago, according to the grim stats released Monday.
Shootings have also climbed 20% — with 149 so far in 2015 compared with 126 in the first two months of 2014.
But overall, crime has dropped 11% in most major crime categories,
including burglary, robbery, rape, grand larceny and auto theft.
The bump in killings came despite a 12-day span over the first two weeks of February when no murders were recorded.
NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said the rise in killings and shootings
should not be taken as indications of “the bad old days roaring back.”
“This is something that we’ve got our arms around, something we have
every confidence we can identify motives and basically focus on that,”
Bratton said Monday.
Breaking down the deadly data, Bratton said most of the killings and
shootings have been concentrated in five of the city’s 77 police
precincts.
The department hopes to curb the violence by beefing up patrols in the
troubled precincts — which include the
46th Precinct in the Bronx, the
102nd Precinct in Queens and the
67th, 63rd and 75th Precincts in
Brooklyn
.
“At this stage of the game, this is not a precursor of (the) worst to
come,” Bratton said. “My sense is we have a pretty good handle on it.”
The city would record 324 murders by year’s end at this pace, which
would be less than the 328 murders across the five boroughs in 2014, the
lowest since 1963. The murder count for 2013 was 335.
At least 19 of the slayings this year were the result of robberies, burglaries, gang warfare or drug dealing.
NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said each of the seven
drug-related murders this year involved marijuana dealers being
targeted. “These are not turf battles. These are ripoffs of marijuana dealers,” Boyce said.
At least eight murders were attributed to domestic violence, including that of a 3-year-old
Brooklyn boy allegedly beaten to death last week by his belt-wielding
aunt.
A dozen other slayings were sparked by various disputes, while four
were reclassified as murders after the victims died from wounds suffered
before the start of the year. Motives in at least nine murders remained
unknown. One killing was deemed an accident and one justified, cops
said."...
.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment