No One Got Killed In New York On Monday, No News Is Good News

At 10:25 pm Sunday, a man in New York’s Bedford-Stuyyesant was badly wounded by a shot in the head. At 11.20 Tuesday, a 27-year-old man was shot in Brooklyn. So what’s the big news? Between those two shootings, New York enjoyed a peaceful 36-plus hours in which no one was shot, stabbed, slashed, or murdered.

New York police can’t remember the last time the city has gone that long without a homicide or shooting.

So, on Monday, no news really was good news for New York residents.

Although, to be fair, Monday wasn’t entirely free from gunshots. The New York Daily News reports that a teenager accidentally shot himself in the leg. But that doesn’t really count, right?

The New York murder rate for 2012 is likely to end up at around 400 homicides. That’s a record low for the city where last year 515 people were deemed homicide victims.

The rest in crime was a refreshing surprise for the NYPD. “Nice way to start the week,” said Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne, the NYPD’s top spokesman.

While 515 may seem like a high number, it pales in comparison to 1990 in which the city logged a record 2,245 murders. Tom Reppetto, a NYPD historian, notes, “There were shootings galore. We lived in a town where people were afraid to come out of their houses, where babies slept in bathtubs to avoid getting shot, where nursery schools ran drills – ‘When you hear the shots, drop down.'”

“They’re going to come in with the fewest number of murders since about 1960,” he said of the city. “It’s an almost impossible figure, but their programs have been fabulously successful in stopping crime.”

Although, even with a drop in murder rates, the overall crime rate in the city has risen by three percent. Police attribute this to the nine percent surge in grand larcenies (including thefts of smart phones and tablets.)

Murders are down 23 percent, and 10 percent fewer people have been shot: only about five a day this year.