Oh Look, New York City Is Actually Pretty Darn Safe
A new report finds that New York City shootings and murders are down, despite Republicans’ best attempts to portray it as a crime haven.
Amid all the noise of the “liberal city infested with crime” narrative this week, you might have missed a report revealing the truth: New York City is one of the safest major cities in America, and may only be getting safer.
According to the NYPD’s weekly statistics report, shootings are down 23.1 percent relative to this point last year, while murders are down 6.6 percent. Hate crimes, a special concern over the past few years amid rising hate toward an array of marginalized groups, are down 40.6 percent.
Meanwhile, New York City recorded the third-lowest number of murders per capita among the 20 largest cities in 2022.
One of Republicans’ primary hobbies is criticizing cities (read: places with public transportation and lots of not-white people and queer people) as bastions of crime. The hobby has become all the more the rage as conservatives have tried to discredit Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg following his office’s indictment of twice-impeached former President Donald Trump.
The Republican pastime has fallen short of the facts (shocker) and has become more than just dumb posts online, but “official” House business too. On Monday, the House Judiciary Committee held a “field hearing” in Manhattan, attempting to deride New York as a center of crime. An expert witness pointed out that the city is in fact very safe, especially relative to some of the places that the assailing Republicans themselves hailed from.
There arguably is indeed a crime wave sweeping the nation. Just over the past month, America has been host to a wave of mass shootings, and an array of appalling instances of people being shot for accidentally pulling up to the wrong driveway, ringing the wrong doorbell, or trying to open the wrong car door. This record pace of shootings is sparked by inordinately easy access to guns and reactionary social distrust: issues instigated by Republicans and issues they seem to have no concern to actually rein in.