Arrests down amid rising NYC crime, disturbing data show

Violence surged across the Big Apple last week — with significant upticks in shootings, robberies and serious assaults — as arrests plunged, alarming NYPD statistics revealed Monday.

The crime wave struck both the streets and the subways, with incidents on the transit system more than doubling despite a long-sought increase in police patrols.

The total number of arrests during the week that ended Sunday fell 10.2 percent, from 3,290 to 2,953, compared to the same period last year, official CompStat figures showed.

Gun arrests plummeted 24 percent, from 129 to 98, even as shootings skyrocketed 72 percent, from 25 to 43.

The number of gunfire victims shot up even more, from 27 to 52, for a 92.6 percent increase.

“This will be the story in New York for the foreseeable future: less arrests, more shootings and more victims,” a frustrated Manhattan cop said.

“They could hire 10,000 cops, but it won’t matter unless the politicians change the laws and keep criminals in jail.”

The NYPD recorded double-digit increases in five of the seven categories of major crimes last week.

Robberies were up 44.4 percent, from 205 to 296, and felony assaults rose 35.3 percent, from 357 to 483, according to the latest data.

The smallest spike — 28.6 percent — was in murders, which went from seven to nine.

The worst trends involved thefts, with grand larcenies up 41.8 percent, from 491 to 696, and the number of stolen vehicles virtually doubling from 157 to 234, or 49 percent.

An NYPD officers speaking to an employee after a shooting at a restaurant in Brooklyn on May 21, 2021.
An NYPD officers speaking to an employee after a shooting at a restaurant in Brooklyn on May 21, 2021.
REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

Crimes in the transit system were up a staggering 161.9 percent, from 21 to 55, despite the temporary addition of 250 police patrols by Mayor Bill de Blasio following months of demands by MTA and union officials.

The increase was fueled in part by a series of subway slashings, including that of an ex-con who stunningly told The Post that crime underground “has gotten out of hand.”

“The only thing they can do is basically have more police officers,” said Dimitrios Zias, 44, who served a 1-1/2-to-3-year prison sentence for a 2017 hate-crime attack on two Jewish women he mistook for Muslims.

NYPD officers with Joseph Borgen after he was assaulted in Times Square.
NYPD officers with Joseph Borgen after he was assaulted in Times Square.

Last week’s shooting victims included a Manhattan federal prosecutor, Mollie Bracewell, who was wounded Friday when a stray bullet fragment struck her eye while she was dining outside a restaurant in Brooklyn’s trendy Prospect Heights neighborhood.

A man who was walking nearby, Benjamin Bustamante, was also accidentally shot in the foot during what cops said was a dispute between rival gangs that began in a nearby park.

The only categories of major crimes that declined were rapes and burglaries, which both dipped 15.4 percent.

But rapes are still up 1.9 percent this year to date, from 517 to 527, the statistics show.

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