New NYPD statistics reveal serious crimes, including in the transit system, are only increasing under Mayor Eric Adams — who has dismissed concern over subway incidents as simply “perception of fear.”
Major Big Apple crimes jumped by more than a third in the first two weeks of this year compared to the same period in 2021 — with transit crimes alone soaring 65.5 percent.
While the figures remain a small sample size, the upward trend provides an early challenge for Adams as he tries to reassure jittery straphangers that cops have everything in hand underground after several terrifying recent rail attacks, particularly Saturday’s horrific random fatal subway push in Times Square.
“New Yorkers are safe on the subway system,” Adams claimed to reporters Sunday. “What we must do is remove the perception of fear.”
The latest figures aren’t helping his case.
In the transit system, serious crime is soaring, with 96 incidents versus 58 last year, driven by a jump in robberies and grand larcenies. The overall figure was down compared to pre-pandemic weeks in 2019.
Nearly every category of overall serious crime in the city is on the rise so far this year, too, with police data showing an increase of 35.2 percent as of Sunday compared to the same time in 2021. The exceptions were murders and burglaries.
“I don’t go out anytime after dark now, not safe,” mom Jessica Seymour, 46, of Inwood, Manhattan, told The Post on Monday.
“A guy got stabbed and another guy got shot right outside my son’s window,” said Seymour, whose boy is 7. “We have two schools here, and this happens right here. My block has police on it all the time. There are shootings. There are drug dealers on our corner right now!”
Monica Pollack, 31 of the Upper West Side, dismissed Adams’ positive spin, too, saying, “The fear is real. Crimes are up.
“Eric Adams can say what he wants to promote ridership, but the fear is justified. He needs to do his job, not gaslight New Yorkers,” the Manhattan resident said.
The latest tally of city felonies — which also include car theft, rape, robbery, assault and grand larceny — show they rose from both 2020 and 2017, or 11 percent and 24.6 percent, respectively, according to the data released Monday.
Shootings, which are not included in the main CompStat figures, also have not slowed, with Gotham recording 52 acts of gunplay so far this January compared to 45 for the same period last year.
That total is nearly double what it was over the same time in 2017, the data shows.
Adams, a former transit cop who ran on a law-and-order platform, fulfilled one of his main campaign promises Friday, with the NYPD set to roll out its revamped anti-crime unit to combat the surge in gun violence.
But shootings aren’t the only worrisome crime trend that the city has failed to reverse since the start of the pandemic.
Car thefts doubled over the first two weeks of 2022 compared to the same time frame last year, 646 versus 324, and grand larcenies were up 61.7 percent, or to 2,108 incidents from 1,304, according to the data.
Robberies were up 25.1 percent, with 127 incidents this year compared to the same period last year. Still, that figure was down nearly 9 percent from pre-pandemic times in 2020.
Rape was also up, 66 incidents versus 57, so far this year compared to the start of 2021. The figure is down nearly 10 percent compared to the same weeks two years ago.
Felony assaults saw a slick uptick, from 831 to 895, according to the data.
The Big Apple did see four fewer murders so far this year — from 18 during the first few weeks of 2021 to 14 so far now — as well as a few dozen fewer burglaries for the time periods.
Adams said in a statement to The Post on Monday, “Safety is the key to prosperity, and bad policy and the pandemic has taken us backwards.
“The bottom line is simple — this city is not nearly safe enough, which why we’re flooding the subway system with hundreds of new officers and partnering with the state to spend tens of millions more on mental health teams.
“But we need everyone to do their jobs — judges to use the laws we have to keep dangerous people off the streets, DAs to bring charges, and Albany to strengthen Kendra’s law and provide more mental health beds.
“Together, we’re going to do our job to keep dangerous people off the street so New York is safe and New Yorkers feel safe.”
