On
June 15, the New York Police Department announced Mayor Bill de Blasio’s
decision to disband the department’s plainclothes anti-crime unit. There
have been more shootings so far this year in New York City than in all of
2019.
CompStat, the NYPD’s statistical management tool, has been a
revolutionary sword in the fight against crime in New York. But with Mayor
de Blasio’s political operatives taking control of the NYPD, the program
is not immune from manipulation.
Mayor
Bill de Blasio tells anyone who will listen that New York is “the safest
big city in America.” But signs of rising urban disorder lately have been
sending a different message. And increasingly, the mayor’s own safe-city
crime statistics seem suspect.
Some
neighborhoods are seeing an alarming increase in major crimes. In the 10
police precincts that make up the Brooklyn North police command, the first
five months of 2019 saw an “8% increase in homicides, 10% increase in
rapes and a 20% increase in shooting victims.”
