Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani: Good afternoon, everyone. Before I begin, I want to thank Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, NYPD leadership, NYPD executive staff and the devoted public servants who are here today. It is a privilege to be back at One Police Plaza to announce a truly remarkable achievement. Over the past six months, New York City has experienced the safest start to any year on record. The data reflects what New Yorkers are feeling on our subways, on our streets, and across the five boroughs. Our whole-of-government approach to public safety is working.
Major crime is down nearly 6 percent citywide. Since January, we have seen the fewest murders, fewest shooting incidents and fewest shooting victims in New York City's recorded history. That equates to 122 murders, a 24.7 percent drop from last year and the lowest level ever recorded. 322 shooting incidents, 15 fewer than last year's record low and 381 shooting victims, 4 percent less than last year. The Bronx is continuing to lead the city in crime reductions, down 11.7 percent.
Our public housing system is at its safest year on record, with major crime down 8.5 percent; murders in public housing are down 44 percent. Shooting incidents and shooting victims are down a staggering 26 percent and 31 percent. We have removed more than 2,500 guns from our streets since January 1. And we recently had the safest Memorial Day weekend in New York history, with the fewest ever shooting incidents and shooting victims over the four-day stretch. None of this was inevitable.
We have achieved this progress thanks to the dedication of those in this room, those standing alongside me, and tens of thousands more across the five boroughs of our city, who have worked tirelessly to deliver a safer city for every New Yorker. This data means much more than a bragging right or a point of comparison for next year. Each of these numbers represents a life untouched by violence, a New Yorker who never had to endure what would have otherwise been the worst day in their life. A New Yorker who will sit down to dinner with their family this evening without grief heavy overhead. A New Yorker who no longer dreads riding the subway home at night. A New Yorker who knows they are safe to take an evening stroll through their neighborhood alone or host a picnic with their family and friends in the park. Each of these numbers, each of these lives, tells the story of a city that is safer and a city that is more welcoming to all.
A city where a Knicks championship dominates the headlines, not tragedy on the corner. That is what responsible governance can achieve. As we build on this incredible progress, we also know that the work of delivering public safety remains ever ongoing. We are still contending with an elevated rise of hate crimes. With hate crimes on the basis of sexual orientation climbing by 57 percent, anti-Muslim hate crimes rising by 50 percent and antisemitic hate crimes rising by 2 percent. While Jewish New Yorkers comprise only 10 percent of our city's population, antisemitic hate crimes account for 55 percent of all confirmed hate crimes.
There's no room for hatred of any kind in our city, which is why in the budget that we recently passed, City Hall fulfilled a promise made on the campaign and increased hate crime prevention funding by more than 800 percent. There is always more to be done to make our city safer, and we will always continue by building on the approach that we know works. An approach that is rooted in the understanding that everyone in City government has a role to play, whether at City Hall or right here at One Police Plaza.
I look forward to continuing to work alongside the brave men and women of the NYPD today, tomorrow, and every day that comes after, as we build a city where every New Yorker is safe. Thank you. Now I will pass things over to Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch: Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you, Mayor Mamdani, for joining us today for our quarterly crime stats press conference. The first six months of this year tell a powerful story about public safety in New York City and about the work being done by the men and women of the NYPD. New York City just had the lowest number of shooting incidents, the lowest number of shooting victims and the lowest number of murders for the first six months of any year in recorded history.
These extraordinary results, among so many others that I will detail today, are driven by our precision policing strategy going after the guns, taking down violent gangs and putting officers on foot posts where they are needed most and when they are needed most. What makes these numbers even more significant is the benchmark that they are being measured against.
Last year, New York City reached historic lows in shooting incidents and shooting victims. Those were not easy numbers to improve on, but through the first six months of this year, the NYPD has pushed them even lower. To be clear, this means more lives saved and more families kept whole. Now, let me give you the overall crime picture. For the first six months of the year, major crime is down in our precincts, in our subway system and in our housing developments. Year to date, overall index crime is down nearly 6 percent citywide. In the second quarter, major crime fell even further down, 8 percent. So far this year, there have been more than 3,400 fewer major crime complaints compared to the same period last year; that is, 3,400 fewer victims.
The Bronx is leading the city with a 12 percent reduction in index crime year to date, continuing the turnaround that we have been driving in a borough where our strategy has been intensely focused. And during the second quarter, we split the Bronx into Bronx North and Bronx South, giving us an even sharper structure to build on that progress, with closer command oversight and more precise deployments. Manhattan is down 6 percent; Brooklyn is down 5 percent; Queens and Staten Island, which both had good years last year, have remained virtually flat.
And in that broader decline, the violence numbers, as the mayor mentioned, are historic. Through the first six months of this year, New York City recorded the lowest number of shooting incidents ever for the first half of any year, down 5 percent compared to last year. That's 337 versus 322. In the second quarter, shooting incidents dropped 8 percent, reaching the lowest Q2 total on record. Shooting victims are also at the lowest levels ever for the first six months of any year, down 4 percent from the previous record set last year; that's 397 versus 381.
For the second quarter, shooting victims fell 8 percent, also reaching the lowest Q2 total on record. Murders also fell to their lowest level ever recorded for the first six months of any year, down nearly 25 percent compared to 2025. That's 162 versus 122. Brooklyn, Manhattan and Staten Island all saw record low murder totals for the first half of the year. In the second-quarter, murders were down 26 percent compared to last year, reaching the lowest second quarter total ever.
And in June, murders were down 46 percent compared to last year, making it the lowest June for murders in New York City's history. If you look back just five years and compare the first half of 2021 to the first half of this year, the scale of this progress is truly astounding. In the first half of 2021, New York City recorded 737 shooting incidents. This year, we recorded 322. In 2021, there were 852 shooting victims in the first half of the year. This year, there were 381. And in 2021, there were 229 murders in the first half of the year. This year, there were 122. That means the NYPD has cut shooting incidents by more than half this year, compared to just five years ago. It means 471 fewer people were shot in the first half of the year, and it means 107 fewer people were murdered in the first half of the year.
Now, let's get into the rest of the seven major crimes. Citywide, robberies are down 12 percent year to date, 7,248 versus 6,387, and nearly 16 percent for the quarter. Burglaries hrough the first six months of the year, it dropped 16 percent, 6,359 versus 5,354, to their lowest level since 2019. That is no accident - it is a direct result of our new Precision Task Force approach that brings patrol officers, detectives, intelligence officers, crime analysts and specialized units into the same room, working the same problem with the same information.
Grand larcenies fell more than four percent, 22,585 versus 21,633 year-to-date, and decreased six percent for the second quarter. Auto theft is down nearly 10 percent, 6,467 versus 5,838 citywide since January, and down 15 percent in the second quarter, and the Bronx, is a major part of that progress. With auto theft, down 26 percent year-to-date in the borough. That is a significant reversal from where we were just last year, when the Bronx was the only borough in the city to see an increase in auto theft. That kind of turnaround comes from detectives carrying out patient, long-term investigations.
Earlier this year, auto crime investigators took down a 16-person crew responsible for stealing vehicles and stripping more than 700 vehicle parts, including tires, rims and catalytic converters. That crew operated mostly out of the Bronx and the criminal enterprise was worth more than $1.2 million in stolen property. Cases like that do not come together overnight. They are built by detectives, identifying patterns, connecting incidents, tracking stolen property and following the evidence until they can dismantle the people driving the crime.
Felony assault remained virtually flat for the first six months of 2026, but within that category, we continue to see several persistent drivers. Domestic violence accounts for 42 percent of felony assaults citywide, a category that has grown sharply since the pandemic. This is an area where the NYPD remains intensely focused through our domestic violence work and enforcement against repeat offenders.
We are also seeing felony assaults against police officers and other public employees continue to make up a significant share of that category, accounting for 11 percent of felony assaults citywide. Within that, assaults on police officers account for approximately 8 percent. It is so important that those cases continue to get felony arraignments. The category where we did see an increase over the first six months of the year was rape, which was up nearly 6 percent citywide. The increase we are seeing this year is being driven in significant part by reports of crimes that occurred in prior years, representing 26 percent of all rapes reported this year. That means more survivors are coming forward to report past sexual violence. And nearly 20 percent of reported rapes fall under the expanded definition created by the Rape is Rape law, which went into effect in September of 2024.
We want survivors to come forward. We want these crimes reported. And when survivors do come forward, the NYPD will investigate those cases and connect them to the support and the services that they need. The reductions we saw in major crime also extended into our subway system. Year to date, major crime in transit is down one percent compared to last year, driven in part by a significant reduction in grand larceny, which is down eight percent, 577 versus 532.
Overall, transit crime was also down in the second quarter and down again in June. All of this is happening in a busier system with ridership up nearly 5 percent compared to last year. But we are also watching the categories where we have seen increases in transit. Murders in transit are up by two year-to-date. Robberies are up by 18 incidents and felony assaults are up by 20 incidents. The drivers vary by category. For transit robbery, the increase is being driven in part by juveniles committing robberies in the system, including kids as young as 12 and 13 years old. In fact, 48 percent of robbery arrestees in transit are 18 or younger.
In the crime categories where we are seeing increases, enforcement is up. Transit robbery arrests are up 10 percent year to date and transit felony assault arrests are up 9 percent. Officers have also recovered 39 guns in transit, the highest first half total on record. We do not ignore increases even when the overall trend is moving in the right direction. That is precision policing. Our transit strategy remains focused on putting officers where crime happens most often, on trains and on platforms, while continuing to enforce the rules, correct conditions and restore order throughout the system.
Public housing continues to be an area where our precision policing strategy is working, with major crime and housing developments down 9 percent year to date and 12 percent in the second quarter. Murders in housing are down 44 percent through June, reaching the lowest level since tracking began in 2007. Shooting incidents in public housing are down 27 percent, and shooting victims are down 31 percent, both also at record lows. We are also seeing strong reductions across other major categories in housing.
For the first six months, auto theft is down 25 percent, robbery is down 23 percent and burglary is down 15 percent. These developments have long seen some of the highest levels of violent crime, and we have surged resources to the places where residents need them most. The reductions that I just walked through did not happen by chance. They are the result of our precision policing strategy. Putting officers where and when the data tells us they are needed most, and those zones are not static. They move when the data moves, shift when patterns shift, and adjust to the conditions that we are seeing on the ground. We applied that same approach to keeping kids safe going to and coming from school.
Our Youth Safety Zones put officers around the places where young people were most likely to become victims of crime, including commuter corridors, bus stops and around schools. Over the course of the school year, major crime in those zones was down 54 percent during deployment hours with robberies down 62 percent, felony assault down nearly 39 percent, grand larceny down 51 percent, and shooting incidents and shooting victims both down nearly 70 percent. Gang takedowns remain central to our precision crime fighting strategy. Since the start of the year, NYPD detectives have carried out 24 gang-related takedowns, arresting 224 gang members and associates and recovering 106 illegal guns as a direct result. That is part of a broader effort that has taken more than 2,500 guns off the streets citywide in 2026 alone, with gun arrests up citywide compared to last year retail theft. It's a recidivist-driven crime that spiked in the early 2020s, affecting businesses, workers, and shoppers. Across the city, people saw the impact in their own neighborhoods from everyday items like toothpaste and deodorant locked behind cases to small businesses struggling to stay open. That's why we've continued to apply our precision approach to identifying patterns, concentrating resources at high propensity locations, and shifting from pass-through enforcement to sustained investigations. As a result, retail theft declined 16 percent citywide year to date, and 12 percent during the second quarter. Confirmed hate crimes increased nearly 8 percent citywide year to date. We continue to see that more than half, or 55 percent, of hate crimes in New York City are antisemitic in nature, despite Jews only making up approximately 10 percent of the population of New York City. So far this year, there have been four more antisemitic hate crimes compared to last year at this time, 178 versus 174.
So, that is the picture for the first half of 2026. Record lows in shooting incidents, shooting victims and murders. Major crime down in precincts and transit and housing. A continued focus on the categories where we still have work to do. Those results would be significant in any year. But they're especially significant now, because New York City is in the middle of one of the busiest seasons that it has ever seen, with the NYPD managing some of the largest and most complex overlapping events in the country: the NBA Finals; the Knicks ticker-tape parade; the World Cup; Sail250; and, of course, America's 250th celebration. Even with all of that happening at once, and with New York once again on the global stage, this department is continuing to drive down major crime. And let me be clear: that does not happen because of strategy on a page. It happens because of the men and women of the NYPD who are carrying out that strategy. They are the ones working foot posts in the heat. They are the ones covering major events and protests and parades and fireworks, all while continuing to answer the calls, make the arrests, recover the guns and build the cases that drive crime down. The records that we discussed today belong to them, and every New Yorker is safer because of their work. So, to the men and women of the NYPD, thank you for your noble service. The city asks an enormous amount of you, especially in moments like this. And you continue to meet that responsibility with the focus, the resolve and the uncommon valor that New Yorkers depend on. We will now take some of your questions.
Question: You've done several hyper-evolved gang takedowns, and I know many of those involved have been teenagers. So, although shootings are down, can you talk about how many of the shooters are there do you think are teens, and how that's-
Police Commissioner Tisch: As you mentioned, we are seeing an incredible reduction in the number of shooting incidents and shooting victims that we have recorded city-wide, and those numbers have reached record lows. Unfortunately, each year the percentage of those shooting incidents that are committed by kids, people under the age of 18, continues to rise. Last year, 19 percent of all suspects in shooting incidents were kids under the age of 18. This year, that number is at 22 percent.
Question: Yeah, this may be a question for Chief LiPetri. You might have your finger on the pulse with this. The commissioner just talked about the decline in shootings overall citywide, but certain areas of the city, particularly Manhattan South and Manhattan North and parts of Queens, have seen rises in the area of about 25 percent in Manhattan and in Queens perhaps 8 or 9 percent. What explains that in light of the overall decrease in the number of shootings citywide?
Chief Michael J. LiPetri, Chief of Department, Police Department: Right, so we are going against historic lows in those boroughs. I mean, when you look at South Queens last year, you're talking about a 50 percent decrease in shootings last year in South Jamaica and other parts of Queens. So, concerning, yes, but again, [we are] going against historic lows. We have shifted resources to Manhattan North. Those resources that we shifted came to fruition last night, where rival crew members were in the development of opposition. And great New York City police officers do what they do, and they arrested that individual with a gun. That's stopping a shooting. There's no doubt about it that those cops last night in Manhattan North stopped a shooting, as they also did in Staten Island last night - same scenario. Oppositions in an area that they were looking to do a shooting, and New York City police officers make a gun arrest. That's two shootings stopped last night.
Police Commissioner Tisch: So, the Bronx has been fully staffed. We needed a few hundred additional officers to staff the Bronx North-Bronx South split, and those officers have been deployed in the Bronx. The number of the crime declines that we are seeing in the Bronx this year are absolutely historic: double-digit overall declines in major crime in that borough. For any of you who have been covering policing for a long time, and some of you really have, you know that it is really unusual to see in one borough a double digit decline across the first six months of any year. So, we are very proud of our results in the Bronx.
Question: Commissioner, can I ask you about a different kind of crime? Your ESU officers had to climb 1,250 feet yesterday. I wondered if you could speak about their efforts. And, Mr. Mayor, when you saw the stunt and the response, did it irk you that those kinds of resources had to be expended for that at a time of what you all have described as a taxed moment for the community?
Police Commissioner Tisch: So, what I'll say about ESU is this: When people in New York City need help, they call 911. When police officers need help, they call the men and women of our Emergency Service Unit. These are men and women of uncommon valor. They exhibit it truly every single day, and New Yorkers are blessed to have them serving our city. As for what I would call the harrowing body camera video that we released last night recorded by the officers responding to that stunt, it really can take your breath away. But that is what the men and women of ESU do basically every day, for those of us who spend time looking at their work and reviewing their videos. They are among the most noble among us. Chief, do you want to speak specifically? Do you have anything to add specifically about that incident?
Chief LiPetri: You hit most of it. Talk about the best of the best. Those are those officers. So, they are being charged with felonies. And I want to - our detective squad did a phenomenal job enhancing that arrest by the patrol officers. But I also want to thank the Manhattan DA's Office on working very closely with us and getting the arraignments on serious felony charges, burglary and reckless endangerment felonies, and unacceptable and there's going to be consequences.
Mayor Mamdani: I'll just add to echo what's been said before. A note of appreciation for the lengths that officers go to protect our city, to protect New Yorkers. And that's an appreciation both in regards to what ESU did, as well as a note of appreciation to what officers do every single day across the five boroughs. You heard the police commissioner say, these incredible results that we are here to speak about. They are not inevitable. They do not deliver themselves. They are delivered by so many, some in this room, many of them outside working right now. Thank you everyone.
