This is one that has to be approached with skepticism — after all, this is New York City.
Despite the omnipresent sound of sirens, the ambulances racing down busy streets, and crimes being committed throughout Gotham’s five boroughs, there were no reported shootings, stabbings or slashings all day Monday, police officials told the New York Daily News — an unheard-of statistic in a city of more than 8 million people. The rare “triple zero” was a welcome departure from two decades ago, when the city logged more than 2,200 murders over the course of 1990, according to CompStat figures.
Right now, the Big Apple is on track to finish the year with about 400 murders, the lowest since 1960, the News said. Although crime is up 9% overall, likely driven by a surge in robberies, homicide is down 23%. The paper says credit for the drop in shooting deaths was given to the NYPD’s controversial “stop and frisk” policy, where people are randomly halted by cops and searched for weapons or illegal drugs, which in theory discourages would-be felons from carrying firearms.
The one shooting that did happen, police say, was an accidental self-inflicted gun wound to the right thigh of a 16-year-old male in the Bronx. No crime was involved.
But alas, the streak did not last. On Tuesday morning a 27-year-old man was shot in the head in Brooklyn’s Flatlands neighborhood.