City crime Marches on

NYPD stats show sharp rise in month

Serious crime and shootings showed no sign of slowing down last month as NYPD data revealed a 37% increase.

While both homicides and rapes dropped 15.8% and 4.3%, respectively, in March compared to 2021, shootings, robberies, felony assaults, burglaries, grand larcenies, auto thefts and hate crimes all spiked, the NYPD said Wednesday.

The overall jump is largely driven by steep increases in vehicle thefts, robberies, grand larcenies and burglaries, cops said.

Shooting incidents spiked 16.2% in March. Year to date, the NYPD clocked 332 victims of gun violence — a 14.5% increase compared to the same period in 2021 — including Kade Lewin, 12, who was fatally shot last Thursday in Brooklyn.

“Our police need more help,” NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said Wednesday during the first crime-stats press conference held since Mayor Adams took office and only the second time the new commissioner has briefed reporters at Police Headquarters.

“We need help from every corner of the criminal-justice system and from everyone who lives in, works in or visits our great city. Any amount of crime and disorder is unacceptable.”

The continued spike in shootings happened during some of the coldest months of the year when gun violence usually dips, and it’s a trend that police sources worry will only get worse come summer when shootings traditionally tick up.

The data come as Adams, who won election on the promise he’d bring safety and order back to the Big Apple, marked 100 days in office. His tenure so far has been marred by seven police shootings and crime levels that continue to eclipse pre-pandemic numbers.

While crime remains a far cry from what has been dubbed in Gotham as the “bad old days” of the 1980s and early 1990s,

they remain at a five-year high overall at least.

Compared to prepandemic, 2019 levels, vehicle thefts in March 2022 are up 107%, shootings increased 69%, grand larceny spiked 26%, felony assault is up 22.5% and robberies saw a 37% uptick.

Meanwhile, the NYPD’s new anti-gun unit, dubbed Neighborhood Safety Teams, has made 135 arrests, but only 25 (19%) were for firearms, said Chief of Department Ken Corey.

Of those arrested for guns, four were juveniles, five have open felony cases and seven were previously convicted of a crime.

Ninety-one of the suspects have prior arrests, 57 have prior felony arrests and 21 were on parole or probation when they were busted, Corey said.