Crime down, murders up in south Queens

While Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly trumpeted crime declining in the city for the 18th year in row and they expected this year’s murder rate to come in at the second lowest in the city’s history, many neighborhoods in parts of south Queens did not see the same reductions.
In Patrol Borough Queens South, which includes eight police precincts in the southern part of the borough, murders shot up from 43 in all of 2007 to 68 through December 21 of 2008, according to NYPD statistics.
“We have had a rash of murders in the district that are unexplained, which is ridiculous,” said City Councilmember Leroy Comrie, who represents a number of the neighborhoods in south Queens.
Seven out of the eight precincts saw murders increase in 2008 from their numbers in 2007 with only the 105th precinct seeing a decrease in murders. The biggest increase - both percentage wise and in number of murders - occurred in the 102nd precinct with 8 murders occurring in 2008 compared to only one murder in all of 2007, according to NYPD statistics.
In addition, the 68 murders through December 21 of this year, is 11 more murders that took place in 1998, but significantly less than the 107 murders committed in 1995.
Comrie believes that the sharp uptick in murders in his district this year is largely attributable to the rise in unemployment and recidivism in the neighborhoods, and he said he is working with the NYPD and District Attorney’s office on programs that could help reduce the murder rate.
Meanwhile, in Patrol Borough Queens North, which also includes eight precincts, there were 23 murders through December 21 of this year compared to 28 at the same time last year - an 18 percent drop - according to NYPD stats. In addition, murders in all but one of these eight precincts was the same or lower than the year before with only the 108th precinct seeing an increase from one murder in 2007 to three so far this year.
Overall, major felony crime in the city fell four percent this year compared to last year, and nearly thirty percent since 2001.
“The continuing reduction of crime is a testament to the quality of our police force - the finest in the world - and to our determination to find innovative ways of turning up the heat on criminals. In the months after 9/11 - when the economic outlook was particularly bleak - we were determined to make our streets safer and more livable,” Bloomberg said.
In addition, Kelly said the Police Department continues to target high crime areas with Operation Impact - a program where the NYPD floods designated, high-crime zones with teams of rookie and veteran police officers in the hopes of reducing crime. The most recent phase of Operation Impact, which began in July of this year, has driven crime down by 16 percent in those zones, according to NYPD stats.
Meanwhile, some lawmakers and community activists have expressed concern that with the budget reductions affecting staffing at all agencies - including decreasing the size of the police force to levels the city has not seen since 2001 - crime may start rising again.
City Councilmember Peter Vallone Jr., who chairs the Council’s Public Safety Committee, criticized Bloomberg for painting too optimistic a picture of the staffing levels at the NYPD.
“Saying we are adding 500 officers when we are in fact decimating the police force is a head in the sand attitude that we cannot afford to have,” Vallone said. “Public safety is the catalyst that allows the city to prosper. By cutting cops, we are not saving money but wasting it.”