After Year Of Decrying Crime, Adams Says NYC ‘Remains’ Safest Big City

NEW YORK CITY — After spending 2022 raising alarms about crime in New York City, Mayor Eric Adams painted a hopeful end-of-year portrait of his public safety efforts to reduce it.

Adams devoted a speech Wednesday to what City Hall officials dubbed “wins” on crime that he delivered during his first year in office.

Two rising problems over the pandemic — murders and shootings — both fell by double digits in the past year, Adams pointed out, along with a cavalcade of other statistics showing crime dropping.

“New York remains the safest big city in America,” he said.

“And in 2023, we’re going to push this city to be safer.”

But Adams’ rosy assessment on crime was arguably undercut by the fact his speech had to be delayed because an NYPD officer was shot that morning.

The victory lap feel of Adams speech also contrasted wildly with his previous doom-and-gloom statements on crime in the city — such as in May when he said he “never witnessed crime at this level.” Crime overall had slightly risen at that point, but shootings had already begun to drop and levels were nowhere near the heights of 20 years ago or more, data shows.

Indeed, many critics and advocates have accused Adams of first overhyping crime and then blaming media outlets for creating a “perception” of a surging problem.

Data shows a mixed bag on whether crime has fallen over the past year.

As Adams highlighted, shootings and homicides have fallen 17.5 percent and 12 percent over the year, respectively. The NYPD hit a 27-year high for felony as well as gun arrests, he said.

Transit crimes fell 12.8 percent over November and more than 27,000 people over the year were removed from the system for breaking rules, he said.

But other statistics Adams didn’t highlight show that while violent crime involving guns is falling, others have risen over the year.

The city’s “major seven” crimes, which include robbery, rape and grand larceny, are up more than 23 percent so far this year, according to NYPD crime statistics.

Adams acknowledged that some areas of public safety, notably hate crimes, have not improved. He said change would come.

“We knew the change wouldn’t happen overnight,” he said.