As COVID rules ease, crime in the city surges
A COVID-weary New York is slowly opening up to a massive surge in violent crime, police said Saturday.
Over the past month, the NYPD has seen large upticks in homicides, shootings and rape reports as the city continues to loosen school, commercial and dining restrictions put in place at the start of the pandemic.
Between the beginning of March through April 4, cops have seen a 95% jump in shootings, a 60% jump in homicides and an unprecedented 54% increase in rapes compared with the corresponding period last year, statistics show.
In the month leading up to last Sunday, police investigated 96 shootings — nearly twice that of the 49 reported during the same time period last year. There were also 32 murders in the five boroughs, 12 more than than the 20 in March 2020.
Cops are also looking into 127 rape reports, 45 more than the 82 reported this time last year, authorities said. The number includes increase in rapes reported between March 29 and April 4, which jumped from nine to 38.
Overall crime shot up by 12% over the last month, from 5,629 cases to 6,304, NYPD data revealed. The only felony crimes cops saw drops in were robbery and burglary, which fell 5% and 10%, respectively.
Police officials expected to see crime increases over the last month, they said. This time last year, the city was placed under an executive lockdown order, closing all schools, restaurants, theaters and nonessential businesses.
Today, many of those restrictions have been lifted and more people are out on the streets.
“We remain in unprecedented times amid the continuing strains of COVID 19,” an NYPD spokeswoman said. “It’s always preferable to view crime statistics over a long period, to determine trends particularly during this ongoing pandemic.”
Rape reports have dropped by 13% over the past year, the spokeswoman said, acknowledging that “rape is an underreported crime.”
“We encourage victims and survivors to always please come forward,” the spokeswoman said.
And not all of the rapes reported this year were recent: Out of the 133 sexual attacks reported in March, only 85 were committed this year, cops said. Nineteen happened in 2020 and 17 occurred more than five years ago, statistics show.
Some criminal justice experts fear that crime will continue to rise as the city reopens.
“The city has been under lockdown and most people have been off the streets for a year,” former NYPD cop and John Jay College of Criminal Justice Prof. Eugene O’Donnell said. “There is an argument that that vacuum has been filled by people doing bad things.
“What is the city’s plan to protect people as they go back out on the streets?” he asked.
An increase in gang violence and bail reform rules enacted last year have added to the problem, O’Donnell said.
“The police have been paralyzed in the city and prosecutors have served notice that they are willing to bend over backwards to excuse criminal behavior, giving the bad guys enormous leeway to operate with impunity,” he said. “It’s a great time to carry a gun in New York City.”
Advocates for criminal justice reform say there’s no evidence linking bail reform to the crime surge.
Data collected by the Vera Institute for Justice showed that out of the 2,000 people who made bail on an open gun case in July 2020, only 40 had been rearrested for weapons charges.