New York’s soul-crushing crime surge continued to accompany the soul-crushing COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, as homicides and shootings continued well above pre-pandemic levels of 2019, NYPD end-of-year data shows.
By the time the ball dropped in Times Square on Dec. 31, the NYPD had investigated 485 murders in 2021 — 17 more than the 468 reported in 2020. The uptick was a 3% increase over 2020 and a massive 52% jump from pre-pandemic levels in 2019, when 318 murders occurred.
Shootings were also up in 2021. Cops counted 1,562 shooting incidents across the five boroughs last year, 30 more than in 2020.
The hardest hit borough was the Bronx, which accounted for 32% of the city’s shootings. As of Dec. 26, some 503 shootings were reported in the Bronx, 120 more than in 2020. As of Dec. 26, the Bronx saw a 35% jump in homicides, from 108 to 146, officials said.
Upper Manhattan was also under a cloud a gun smoke in 2021, with 224 shootings through Dec. 26 — 48 more than a year earlier.
It wasn’t immediately clear how many triggers were actually pulled last year.
In addition to shooting incidents in which someone was struck, police track instances in which a gun was fired but no one was hit through the ShotSpotter detection system. The NYPD, which has provided these statistics in the past, declined repeated requests by the Daily News for such information for 2021.
Police also saw increases in rapes, robberies, assaults and car thefts throughout the year. As of Dec. 26 overall crime was up by 6%, from 94,916 to 100,730.
The number of burglaries across the city, however, has fallen by about 18%, recently published statistics show.
Exact tallies were still being tabulated Saturday.
New York’s new top cop vowed to bring down crime — with the community’s help.
“Today we are beginning the next chapter of policing in New York City and we are calling on every New Yorker to join us in our efforts to drive crime out of every one of our communities,” NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said in a tweeted video.
“As your police department, we can only do our job effectively and efficiently when we do it with you.
NYPD cops, she said, were “as passionate as they are committed to public safety.”
“It is my pledge that we will work with you every step of the way on our path for a safer New York City,” she said. “It’s a way forward we must walk together and we start today.”
Most of the violence Sewell and her department must tackle is being committed by warring street gangs, police officials say.
Shootings began skyrocketing in the city during the summer of 2020, culminating in a horrific July 4 weekend in which 41 people were shot, nine fatally, in one day. The violence continued through the beginning of 2021, but began to abate slightly.
In July 2021, a year after the surge in violence began, ex-Police Commissioner Dermot Shea reported a 35% drop in shootings, although the month ended with a violent gang-fueled Queens bloodbath that wounded 10 people.
“(It’s) progress, that is exactly how I would categorize that, but it’s still way too high,” Shea told NY1 at the time, noting that gun arrests in the city were at an all-time high. After about four months of reductions, shootings ramped up again in the fall.
Shea, who left office Friday, often in 2021 blamed the uptick in violence and crime to bail reform laws that were enacted at the end of 2019, although advocates often blasted Shea’s belief.
With Rocco Parascandola