The New York Police Department on Monday said the city documented its fewest killings ever for the first four months of the year, and in April witnessed a record low number of killings as well.
The NYPD said the 76 slayings from January through April broke the city’s prior mark of 86, set in 2018.
New York City’s 19 homicides in April are also the fewest for that month in its history.
The city’s previous low Aprils were the 21 killings recorded in 2014 and 2017. The April 2026 number is also 41% off from the 32 last year, the NYPD said.
The department said violent crime is down almost 10% so far this year, with crime drops across all five boroughs, and on transit and public housing complexes.
NYPD said the public housing developments, frequently the hotbeds of deadly shootings and muggings, saw their safest start to the year ever.
“Once again, the crime reductions across the five boroughs are a direct result of our precision policing strategy: focusing on illegal guns, putting officers where they’re needed most, and taking down violent gangs,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in a statement.
“These results are made possible by the women and men of the NYPD carrying out that work with focus and discipline,” she said. “That approach is producing real, measurable crime reductions across the city, and it will continue to guide our work in the months ahead.”
The good news wasn’t confined to the homicide numbers.
Shootings, and people wounded in shootings, both fell by 19% in April versus last year’s month.
In April, the department said robberies declined by 14%, car theft declined by 20% and burglaries declined by 22% — with the last statistic also being a record low for the month. Further, retail theft dropped by 18%, felony assault was down 6% and grand larceny sank by 4%.
There was a 10% uptick in rapes, however, which the department attributed in part to the state broadening the criminal definition of rape to include more forms of sexual assault.
