Adams’ shot

Two new sets of numbers present troubles for Mayor Adams — and the rest of New York. Set one: A third of the way through his first year on the job, overall crime is up 42% from the same point in 2021. Robberies, long considered the bellwether indicator of street safety, are up 45%. Felony assaults, up 20%. Grand larcenies, up 54%. Hate crimes, up 27%. Transit offenses, up 63%. These are very large year-over-year jumps.

Two glimmers of hope are a 14% year-over-year drop in murders, a decline that’s accelerated of late, and a no-doubt-related 27% drop in shootings over the last four weeks. It’s almost certainly not a coincidence that April was the first full month of work for Adams’ new, firearm-focused Neighborhood Safety Teams.

Set two: A Quinnipiac poll shows the mayor’s approval rating sliding. Voters say crime is the most urgent problem facing the city (49%), and the second-place concern isn’t even close (affordable housing, at 15%). There are no suggestions that New Yorkers have a strategic disagreement on public safety with the ex-cop they elected, who won on his promise to bend a curve that was already rising when he took over — 86%, for instance, support having more cops in the subway. The waning confidence is a direct result of rising violence and disorder on the ground.

If anyone’s still out there suggesting that worries about mayhem are just so much overblown fearmongering fueled by hyperventilating tabloid front pages, they should cut it out. While it’s true that New York remains safer by the numbers than many other cities and safer than it was 20 years ago, people know their own lives, and it’s undeniable that a city that fairly recently used to feel safe now feels decidedly less so. Indeed, those historical comparisons don’t even all look good anymore: Year to date, overall crime is now up 21% from 12 years ago.

We hope and trust that in the months ahead, modest public safety reforms by Albany, combined with more intelligent investments in targeted policing, will reap dividends. Cross fingers tightly. Summer is coming.