Blaz: We will cut murders

WITH THE YEAR on track to close with a spike in murders, Mayor de Blasio defended his crime-fighting record Friday by pointing to drops in other felonies — but stressed he wasn’t happy with the escalating body count.

De Blasio called NYPD stats projecting the city would end 2015 with around 353 murders — 20 more than last year — “troubling” and “unacceptable.”

“We constantly are trying to figure out the next initiative, the next innovation that will take those numbers down even further,” de Blasio said in an interview on WNYC with Brian Lehrer.

He also pointed out that the increased number of murders — which amounts to a roughly 5% hike over 2014 — is far lower than the tally as recently as 2010, when there were 536 killings.

“We don’t accept the status quo, even though the status quo is much, much better than it was even as recently as 2010,” he said.

The mayor, who frequently praises NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton as the best police commissioner in the country, pointed to other crime stats that he finds encouraging.

They include a 2.5% drop in overall crime this year — with 2,400 fewer major crimes reported — and a drop in the number of shootings, despite curbing the use of the controversial NYPD stopand-frisk tactic, he said. “There’s been clear progress,” he said.

If the city ends the year with around 20 more killings than last year, it will be the first time since 2010 that the murder rate has climbed above the previous year.

Although a 20-murder uptick would be relatively small in a city of 8.5 million, de Blasio is eager to dispel any notion that the city’s crime rate is returning to the bad old days — which at its peak in 1990 included 2,254 homicides.

“We work every single day to stop murders from happening,” said de Blasio, while touting the 1,300 extra cops he’s added to the NYPD, gun sting operations with the District Attorneys, and new technology to locate shots fired.

He made clear it was no easy task keeping the city safe.

“A lot of things are working, but it’s — as you can imagine, Brian, it’s endless,” he said on WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show.”

We don’t accept the status quo, even though the status quo is much, much better than it was even as recently as 2010.

Mayor de Blasio