By Rich Bockmann
Queens was on pace to see a significant drop in murders this year, preliminary data showed, making 2013 by far the safest year in the borough during the Bloomberg administration.
The borough had recorded just 56 murders by the middle of December, down 32 percent from last year’s total of 83, according to NYPD crime statistics. The figures are preliminary and subject to change if certain cases are reclassified.
If the trend holds up, 2013 would be the least-deadliest year in outgoing Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 12 years in City Hall.
The previous record was set in 2007 when Queens recorded 72 murders, according to the Police Department’s historical data. It should be noted that the historical data combines both murders and manslaughters in the same category, whereas the weekly crime reports show only murders.
Historically, Queens’ most dangerous police precincts have been in southeast Queens, with the 103rd, 105th and 113th accounting for 41 percent of the killings across the borough’s 16 precincts from 2002 through 2012.
South Jamaica’s 113th Precinct was the deadliest last year with 16 murders. That number is down 56 percent this year to seven.
City Councilman Ruben Wills (D-Jamaica), whose district includes part of the 113th, said he attributes the decline to the work a handful of anti-violence advocacy groups are doing on the ground and the leadership of the precinct’s commanding officer.
“Collectively, with the work we’ve done, people are being more responsive,” he said. “They trust us to turn in guns and offer tips.”
The 105th, which stretches along the Queens/Nassau County border from Rosedale to Queens Village, improved from eight murders in 2012 to three this year, a 62 percent drop. The 103rd, based in downtown Jamaica, showed an improvement of 20 percent, down two murders from last year’s 10.
In the Rockaways, the 100th Precinct on the western end of the peninsula had registered three murders by the middle of December, up two from last year, and the 101st covering Far Rockaway had just two murders, down from a total of seven last year.
Northeast Queens’ three precincts have recorded just two murders so far in 2013, down from last year’s total of seven.
There have been no murders in Bayside’s 111th Precinct so far this year, compared to one at the end of 2012, and Flushing’s 109th and Fresh Meadows’ 107th precincts recorded one murder each through mid-December, down from a combined six last year.
Astoria’s 114th Precinct is on track for a 50 percent decline and to the south Long Island City’s 108th will have the same number of murders it did last year — four — if the trend holds up.
To the west, the two precincts straddling Roosevelt Boulevard in Jackson Heights and Corona are both down.
The 114th Precinct — covering Jackson Heights, East Elmhurst and North Corona — is down two murders from last year’s six, and Corona’s 110th Precinct, which had eight last year, is down to five.
In Maspeth, Middle Village and Ridgewood, the 104th Precinct has seen a rise in murders, up to three from one last year. The 112th Precinct covering Forest Hills and Rego Park is the only one in the borough to be murder-free both years.
Richmond Hill’s 107th Precinct has thus far had seven murders, the same as last year, and to its south the 106th — covering Ozone Park, South Ozone Park and Howard Beach — has had three murders so far, up from two last year.
Reach reporter Rich Bockmann by e-mail at rbockmann@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.
