Record lows for killings, shootings in NYC during first 9 months of the year: Mayor Zohran Mamdani

New York City has experienced the fewest murders, the fewest shootings and the fewest shooting victims so far in 2026 compared to the same period of any year on record, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Tuesday.

For the first nine months of 2026, there were 203 murders, nearly 6% fewer than the prior record low, 215, in 2017; the 489 shooting incidents were almost 12% fewer than the previous low, 553, recorded last year; and there were 594 shooting victims, 14% fewer than the 694 recorded in 2018, the prior record, according to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch.

The crime rate, which has continued to fall this year, is a rejoinder to Mamdani's critics who during last year’s mayoral campaign foretold of crime spikes if he were elected.

“We will not allow ourselves to grow complacent. There is still work to be done, because while major crime figures may be plummeting, we know that even a single crime in our city is one crime too many,” Mamdani said, speaking at a news conference with Tisch in Manhattan at NYPD headquarters.

The statistics are not conclusive and could be revised. 

Year over year, there were also fewer reports of burglaries (down 13.7% year to date, or 8,316 vs. 9,636), robberies (12.2%, or 10,080 vs. 11,478), grand larcenies (5.8%, or 33,939 vs. 36,033) and auto thefts (12.4%, or 9,110 vs. 10,394). But there were increases in felony assaults (0.2%, or 22,781 vs. 22,726) and rapes (3.7%, or 1,594 vs. 1,537).

“This city gave the NYPD an extraordinary test,” Tisch said, “and our cops answered it with historic results.”

Among the other notable crime statistics through Sept. 30:

• Grand larceny was down 5.8% (33,939 vs. 36,033), but the offense accounts for almost 40% of major crimes reported in New York City.
• Major crime in the city's transit system rose 0.9% (1,628 vs. 1,613), and most of the 734 people arrested in the subway system for a major crime — 394 people, or 53.6% — had been arrested at least three times before. ("I can assure New Yorkers that we will continue to bring the full weight of this department to bear on the people driving violence in our transit system," Tisch said.)
• Of the transit assaults, Tisch said, "48% of felony assaults in transit this year have been committed by individuals with a documented mental health history with the Police Department."

Chief of Department Michael J. LiPetri, the NYPD's highest-ranking uniformed officer, credited a years-long decline in shootings to a "a block-to-block analysis across New York City" that began in 2022 involving "very, very smart data scientists, programmers, crime analysts."

Cops are deployed more in areas identified by the analysis, he told the journal Vital City last year, with intensified enforcement in those areas by narcotics detectives. Police resources, LiPetri said, are allocated using computers that analyze historical crime data to predict where crimes seem to be committed near one another.

The NYPD's approach to combatting crime over the years has not come without costs.

An independent monitor earlier this year found "serious compliance challenges" since the inception of specialized anticrime units in complying with constitutional requirements of stopping, questioning and frisking, mostly of Black and Hispanic men.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.