WASHINGTON — After receiving a brutal increase in violent crime in New York, according to the New York Post, Mayor Bill de Blasio declared that it was time to stop describing an upturn in murders as a “dip” in crime.
“We are starting to see growth in the violent crime rate, and the NYPD is doing everything possible to meet the challenge,” de Blasio said, according to the Post. “And any reasonable person, if you know anything about the history of this city, you know that if it ever becomes clear we are not on track to meet that challenge, we will have the courage to act.”
However, just five days after de Blasio announced the uptick in killings, the statistic has become even more out of control. It’s continuing to rise, with over two dozen murders reported just in the first two days of this year.
Meanwhile, crimes like robberies and rapes are continuing their steady decline. Sexual assaults, robberies and aggravated assaults all decreased in 2016 from 2015.
“This is a troubling trend and it reflects that the war on drugs has brought with it a resurgence of many of the most violent crime, including homicides,” Police Commissioner James O’Neill said.
But DNA Info reports that “totals don’t include cases where cops filed as ‘officer involved’ rather than ‘man involved’ as allowed by official NYPD policy.” In addition, the police department maintains “that some of the 2017 numbers might be a result of increases in victim reports, a lag in collecting records and that the raw data should be viewed in a context of the 10-year decrease in homicide rates.”