As Murder Rate in City Goes Up, CH Suffers its First of ’09

CROWN HEIGHTS [CHI] — On Thursday, January 1st, Crown Heights suffered its first murder of 2009. It happened at 347 Maple St, between New York and Nostrand Ave. Police responded when someone called 911, saying there was an unconscious male at the location. Upon arrival the police found an unresponsive black male in his 60’s on the floor.

EMS pronounced the victim dead at the scene and transported him to the medical examiner. The ME’s office released in a statement, 67 years old Delinor Dorissaint was murdered at his home Thursday. NYPD detectives are still investigating why and who murdered him.

This comes as the number of murders in the City rose about four percent in last yeats compared with the previous year, preliminary figures from NYPD show. The NYPD’s CompStat data showed 516 murders in the city last year, up from 496 in 2007.

That’s still a dramatic change from 1990, when 2,262 murders earned New York the title of “murder capital” of the nation.

Though the figures are subject to change, the 2008 tally also represents a drop from the 596 murders investigated in New York in 2006. The NYPD, which began compiling the report in 1963, cited its Operation Impact as a chief reason for the improvement in recent years. The operation places more uniformed officers in concentrated areas where crime rates are high, the NYPD said.