There were nine days last month without a single shooting recorded in the city, police said on Wednesday, as overall crime continued to go down.
In total, there were 40 recorded shootings in February, a 35.5% decrease from last February when police recorded 62 shootings. Overall crime decreased by about 9.7% with 6,630 major felony crimes recorded last month compared to the same time period last year.
Officials credited the confluence of precision policing, a strategy aimed at targeting resources where the crimes are committed, and neighborhood policing, where cops focus on a small area and get to know the community.
“As we move through 2017 and this becomes ingrained into how we do business, I think this is going to help us push crime down, especially the violence,” Police Commissioner James O’Neill said, speaking at a news conference at the 114th Precinct in Astoria, Queens. “I see this definitely going in a positive direction.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio also credited the deployment of 2,000 more officers on the streets with helping crime decrease, calling them “an X-factor that’s going to have an increasingly big impact.”
“It’s very gratifying for all of us to be able to come before you month after month and show progress, but there isn’t a hint of complacency,” de Blasio said. “They see this as a beginning, not an end. We have a lot more to do.”
Crime decreased in all five boroughs last month, said NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Dermot Shea.
“We were confident we could push crime down even further,” said Shea. “We have a lot of momentum in our crime fighting efforts right now. A lot of things going very well.”
However, there was a small uptick in homicides — 20 murders were reported this February, compared to 18 last February, police said.
