Murder & Assault Number Downs – Crime Overall Up

CROWN HEIGHTS [CHI] — 2012 was a year which included big changes in the 71st Precinct, with a new commanding officer brought in and shakeups in the department. Among the changes a severely distorted picture of crime numbers has emerged with a spike in felony crimes and a massive drop in misdemeanors.

The New York City Police Department releases crime statistics every two weeks through its CompStat program, and the latest report covers the year of 2012 through the 23rd of December. The numbers paint a strange picture in comparison to the previous four years.

This year only 3 homicides, a 66% drop, has been recorded – that is the lowest ever in this precinct in comparison to 9 in 2011. Rape, Felony Assault and Burglaries are all down 11%, 10% and 11% respectively.

Nevertheless, there was an overall 13.5% increase in felony crimes, this was due to a 7% spike in Robberies and 4% increase in Auto Burglaries and a whopping 65% – 613 incidents compared to 371 last year – increase in Grand Larceny.

The difference between robbery and grand larceny is when the perpetrator threatens or uses force during the commission of the crime, so a cell phone snatching would be grand larceny but if multiple people were involved it would rise to a robbery.

Misdemeanor crimes such as petit larceny and assault are down 8% and 6% respectively. Shooting victims and incidents are also down 29% and 36.8%.

So why the massive distortion in numbers?

In April of this year the 71st Precinct received a new commanding officer, Deputy inspector John Lewis, who replaced the embattled D.I. Peter Simonetti. The disparity in numbers reflect the difference in the way to two C.O.’s seem to handle crime.

From the first week that inspector Lewis arrived in Crown Heights he was seen personally patrolling and responding to incidents, giving resident a more confident feeling in the way crime is being dealt with. Lewis also set Simonetti’s previous politics aside and reached out to Shomrim and began working with them in an effort to curb crime.

Amid allegations of NYPD brass putting pressure on commanders to keep crime numbers down, it would seem that Lewis is not playing by those rules. In the past Lewis has told CrownHeights.info that he is here to fight crime and not play those politics.