Mass Killings Drive NYC Murder Spike, Police Say

NEW YORK — Two horrific mass killings drove up the number of murders in New York City last month after two years of historic lows, police officials said Wednesday.

The slayings in Chinatown and Crown Heights were responsible for increasing the city's murder total to 267 this year through October from 259 at the same point in 2018, said Lori Pollock, the NYPD's chief of crime control strategies. That's a 3.1 percent increase.

The two incidents a week apart took the lives of eight people. Randy Santos has been accused of beating four homeless men to death on the streets of Chinatown in the early morning of Oct. 5. And four other men died after gunfire erupted in an illicit Crown Heights gambling den on Oct. 12.

The killings accounted for most of the 11 additional murders the city saw last month compared to the prior year, NYPD statistics show. There were 29 slayings last month, up from 18 in October 2018, police say.

Despite the outbreaks of violence, city officials remain optimistic that the NYPD will see a third consecutive year with fewer than 300 murders, a milestone not previously reached since the 1950s. The police department recorded 289 slayings in 2018 and 292 in 2017.

"This is a city that has consistently gotten safer and stronger," Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a Wednesday news conference in Brooklyn. "But of course any time a number goes up, first and foremost it’s about a human being, and that’s what matters most."

The city's murder rate is still hovering at about 3.4 per 100,000 people — about a tenth of what it was in 1990 — even as the numbers ticked up last month, outgoing Police Commissioner James O'Neill said.

The seven major crimes — murder, rape, robbery, burglary, felony assault, grand larceny and auto thefts — have decreased 1.8 percent so far this year despite recent spikes in certain offenses, police figures show.

Robberies, grand larcenies and auto thefts all increased along with murders last month compared to October 2018, the NYPD says. The police department recorded 8,638 major crimes last month, up 2.4 percent from the same month last year.