Slays, shoots soaring in city housing

Though crime is down citywide, cops are fighting a skyrocketing increase in murders and shootings in city housing projects, officials said Thursday.

As of April 28, housing officers faced a 3% jump in overall crime this year, from 1,457 incidents to 1,500, cops said. Most of the increase occurred in April, when the number of crimes jumped 17%.

Twenty murders have been reported in housing projects this year — an increase from 13 during the same period of 2018, cops said.

The NYPD is currently fighting a 2.3% increase in homicides across the city — 88 have been counted so far this year, up from 86 during the same period in 2018. Shootings are up 11.6%, to 212 so far this year, compared with 190 reported from January to April in 2018.

Overall crime for the year is down, led by drastic drops in reports of robberies, burglaries and car thefts.

“The big picture for the city is positive,” Mayor de Blasio said at a press conference at Police Headquarters Thursday.

A “record low” number of crimes were reported in the city last month compared with April 2018, said NYPD Chief of Crime Control Strategies Lori Pollack.

“During the ebb and flow of the last few months we have seen a consistent reduction in robberies, burglaries and car thefts of over 6%, which translates to just over 1,900 fewer crimes so far in 2019 over 2018,” Pollack said.

From January to April of this year, the NYPD investigated 27,086 crimes, officials said. During the same period in 2018, some 29,017 crimes were reported to police. That’s a citywide crime decline of 6.6%.