STOP THE BLEEDING

NYPD responds to deadly ’18 start

The city’s murder tally remains up this year as compared to 2017 but is trending in the right direction after a bloody spike in the spring and early summer, the NYPD said Wednesday at its monthly crimestats briefing.

New York saw 228 homicides through the end of September, an increase of 13 — or 6 percent — from last year’s 215 through the same point. But department brass says the grim total is stabilizing after a particularly violent stretch from April through June, which this year included 92 slayings compared to 70 last year.

“We made tremendous adjustments going into the third quarter to address the homicides and gang violence citywide, specifically in The Bronx,” said Chief of Crime Control Strategies Laurie Pollock.

Bloodshed in the borough was responsible for much of the hike during the year’s second quarter, notching 33 homicides versus 13 during the same period in 2017, highlighted by the mistaken-identity slaying of teen Lesandro “Junior” Guzman-Feliz, 15, outside a bodega.

This gory stretch in The Bronx included five domestic homicides compared to none in the same time last year, and 11 fatal stabbings, skyrocketing up from just one.

The latter also seems to dovetail with a continuing dip in gunplay — the city has seen an all-time low of 573 shootings through September, down 28 from last year’s 601.

Pollock credited a number of initiatives with tamping down the second-quarter violence, including focuses on gangs and domestic incidents, and the return of the NYPD’s Summer All Out program that floods troubled precincts with additional beat cops as the mercury rises.

The second-quarter stumble was also partially cushioned by a historically safe first quarter of the year, when there were a record-low 57 homicides, as compared to 66 last year.

The third quarter — July through September — split the difference, as murders leveled out to 79, tying last year’s number for the period.

Overall crime is down 1 percent on the year, with 71,174 major “index” crimes tallied by the department, down from 71,908, as 2018 heads into the homestretch.