Murder Takes A Holiday In Queens

David Oats
Monday, October 19th to Sunday, November 1, 1998.
Just another two weeks in the life of Queens. There was nothing outwardly apparent to show what would make those 14 days different from any other two-week period.
But there was. Not one murder was committed in this Borough of two million residents in that period. No one can remember a homicide-free period such as that since the early 1960s. That’s before VCRs and Cable TV, home computers and John Glenn’s first trip into space. JFK was president. The crime wave that began to rise in the late ’60s and ’70s, rising higher and higher in the ’80s and early ’90s is now continuing its remarkable descent. Record laws have been continuing in almost every type of crime, in almost every part of the City.
Queens D.A. Richard Brown recalls that before he came to office in the mid-’90s there were more than 350 homicides in this Borough. Today that figure would represent half of the expected death toll in the entire City. The recent two-week homicide-free period in Queens was also matched in Manhattan. Police Commissioner Howard Safir said last week that murder this year is down nearly 20 percent Citywide from 645 last year to 519. At its record heights, there were more than 2,000 murders reported Citywide in the early 1990s. That’s an average of about six per day.
"It’s wonderful news," said City Councilman Sheldon Leffler of Hollis, chair of the Council’s Public Safety Committee. "It’s part of the very dramatic decreases in crime overall and a two-week period in Queens without a single murder is quite amazing," Leffler added. Safir singled out N.Y.P.D. drug initiatives, the expansion of the Street Crime Unit and the department’s assault on gangs as reasons for the drop in crime. Anti-drug initiatives in Southeastern Queens have also had a big impact in this Borough, police sources said.
In Patrol Borough Queens North in 1997 from January to November there were 57 murders, this year 41 murders. In PBQ South in the same period last year there were 59 murders, this year 46. This is a Citywide drop of 11 percent in overall crime. Robbery is down 12 percent, assaults dropped 4 percent, rape decreased 9 percent, burglary went down 13 percent, grand larceny is down 7.7 percent and auto theft has fallen 14.5 percent.
The remarkable two-week period when there were no homicides in Queens came to an abrupt halt on Nov. 5, however. On that day a Cambria Heights man hanged himself after stabbing his estranged wife to death in their home. In addition, a 22-year-old man was shot once in the head on Halloween night in Beach Channel Drive and taken to Peninsula General Hospital. He lived until Nov. 5 so he is not included in the no-murder statistics for the two-week period.