Mamdani, Hochul and Tisch appear together to highlight city's reduction in violent crime

Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch on Tuesday extolled a plunge in city violence last year, including the fewest shootings in the modern era, while also acknowledging troublesome trends in assaults on public officials and a rise in youth violence.

The three met at NYPD headquarters for their first joint news conference.

Tisch said the final 2025 crime tally showed it to be the safest year ever for gun violence in the modern era of police record keeping and noted homicide numbers dipped to 305, one of the three lowest years for that category since 1994. Shootings were down to 688 from 904 in 2024, police data showed.

Overall, all serious crimes such as murder, rapes, robberies and felony assaults dropped about 2.7% to 121,542 from 125,026, with declines in all five boroughs, although still well above the 95,000 level from the time of the pandemic in 2020.

"These historic reductions in crime did not happen by chance or accident, they are the direct product of a deliberate, data-driven strategy," Tisch said.

The significant results for New York City also provided Tisch with an opportunity to take a jab at some other big cities, notably Chicago and Philadelphia. She noted last year Chicago, a city with 3 million people, had more than 1,400 shootings while Philadelphia, a city with a population of 1.5 million recorded 825 shootings. New York has a population of more than 8.5 million people.

But at the same time Tisch acknowledged the number of felony assaults, particularly aimed at public officials, including police officers, and domestic violence incidents, drove the tally for that crime up 0.4% compared with 2024. Tisch also noted in 2025 about 14% of shooting victims were under the age of 18, a 5% increase over 2024.

Rapes, in part because of a change in the legal definition of that crime category, increased 16% in 2025, with domestic violence rapes accounting for nearly half of all such complaints citywide, Tisch said.

The three leaders didn't offer specific solutions to reducing the spike in felony assaults and rapes.

"Together with Commissioner Tisch and Gov. Kathy Hochul," Mamdani said, "we will continue to drive down crime."

Hochul applauded the safest year in subway crime in 16 years, excluding the pandemic, something she partially credited to her funding of police overtime, which she said would continue in 2026.

In a separate statement, Hochul said her investment of $3 billion for police and public safety helped drive crime in the city to new lows in many areas.

The governor also teased that she would be announcing as early as next week a plan to create safety cordons around houses of worship to prevent worshippers from being intimidated by disruptions.

By Anthony M. DeStefano

tony.destefano@newsday.comtonynewsday

Anthony M. DeStefano has been a reporter for Newsday since 1986 and covers law enforcement, criminal justice and legal affairs from its New York City offices.